By Hadeel Al Sayegh, Pesha Magid and Maha El Dahan
DUBAI (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend a meeting of global financiers and tech executives hosted by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in Miami later in February, according to several people with knowledge of the event.
According to the people, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, Trump is scheduled to deliver an address at the gathering.
Among other attendees poised to attend the FII Priority summit are TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, as well as Yasir Al-Rumayaan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, the $925 billion Saudi sovereign fund, according to the FII website. The public website doesn’t list Trump as an attendee.
A representative for FII in Riyadh declined to comment. Representatives for the U.S. embassy in Riyadh didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s possible participation at the event would come after Saudi Arabia was among Arab states that swiftly condemned his plans for rebuilding Gaza as a “Riviera of the Middle East” and his call for displacing Palestinians from the enclave.
Trump enjoyed close ties with Gulf states during his first tenure as president, including Saudi Arabia which has invested $2 billion with a firm of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former aide.
The Trump Organization plans to build a Trump Tower in the Saudi capital Riyadh as part of real-estate expansion in the region including in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi.
Trump has called on Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil. He has also said Riyadh should increase a planned U.S. investment package to $1 trillion from an initially reported $600 billion.
U.S. exports of goods to Saudi Arabia were significantly higher in value than Saudi foreign direct investment in the U.S. in recent years, government data showed.
(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh, Pesha Magid, Maha El Dahan and Anousha Sakoui; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi, Edmund Blair and Kim Coghill)
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