From the Liveblog of
Friday, April 25, 2025
Trump predicts Saudi-Israel normalization ahead of Riyadh visit
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleNava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.
US President Donald Trump says he believes that Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords— the series of normalization agreements that his previous administration brokered between Israel and several Arab states—in an interview with Time Magazine published Friday.
“I think Saudi Arabia will go into the Abraham Accords,” Trump tells political correspondent Eric Cortellessa when asked about his planned visit to Riyadh next month, which marks the second foreign trip of his second term — the first being today’s last-minute trip to the Vatican for Pope Francis’s funeral.
“I think it will be full very quickly,” Trump adds, referring to the normalization agreements.
Trump expresses his liking for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi people, adding that “Saudi Arabia…agreed to invest a trillion dollars in our economy.”
“I’m then going to Qatar, and I’m then going to the United Arab Emirates,” he continues.
Trump blames President Joe Biden’s administration for halting the “tremendous success” of the Abraham Accords.
“They did nothing with the Abraham Accords. We had four countries in there, it was all set. We would have had it packed. Now we’re going to start it again,” he says.
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