On Tuesday, President Donald Trump started his four-day trip to the Middle East by meeting Saudi Arabia's powerful leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. They talked about important things like stopping Iran's nuclear program, ending the fighting in Gaza, keeping oil prices low, and other topics.

Prince Mohammed gave a friendly welcome to Trump when he got off Air Force One, starting his trip to the Middle East.

After that, the two leaders went to a large room at the Riyadh airport, where people helping them gave Trump and his team traditional Arabic coffee. These helpers wore special belts with guns.

The ceremony started before Trump's plane even landed. Saudi fighter jets flew next to Air Force One as it got close to the capital city.

Trump and Prince Mohammed were planned to have lunch together at the Royal Court. Some important business leaders were also invited to the event, such as the heads of Blackstone Group, BlackRock, Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk is also in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency. This is a new program in his second term that aims to find and stop waste, lies, and bad actions in the U.S. government.

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Saudi Aramco, a big oil company, said its profits for the first three months of the year were $26 billion. This is 4.6% less than the same time last year.

Later, the prince will have a formal dinner for Trump. Trump will also be at a conference about U.S.-Saudi investment on Tuesday.

Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih said, "When Saudis and Americans work together, good things usually happen, and sometimes, they are great things."

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ countries helped Trump early in his second term by producing more oil. Trump thinks low-cost energy is important for lowering prices and stopping inflation for Americans. He also believes that lower oil prices could help end the war in Ukraine more quickly.

However, Saudi Arabia's economy still relies strongly on oil, and to have a balanced budget, they need the price of oil to be around $96 to $98 a barrel. We don't know how long OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia, will continue to produce a lot of oil. On Monday, the price of Brent oil was $64.77 a barrel.

Lower oil prices make it harder for Gulf countries to create different kinds of businesses, says Jon Alterman, an expert on the Middle East.

Trump chose the kingdom for his first visit because it promised to invest a lot of money in the U.S. However, he actually went to Italy last month for Pope Francis's funeral. So, Riyadh was his first trip abroad during his first time as president.

The president is visiting three countries - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. In these countries, the Trump Organization, managed by Trump’s older sons, is working on large building projects. These projects include a tall building in Jeddah, a fancy hotel in Dubai, and a golf course with houses in Qatar.

Trump wants to show that his way of dealing with other countries is working well. He is being criticized by Democrats who say his taxes on imported goods and his actions regarding Russia's war in Ukraine are making the U.S. isolated from its allies.

He will probably announce agreements with three rich countries. These agreements will include artificial intelligence, more energy cooperation, and maybe new weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Earlier this month, the government first allowed the sale of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia's fighter planes for $3.5 billion.

However, when Trump arrived in the Middle East, his main allies in the area, Israel and Saudi Arabia, did not fully agree with his ideas.

Before the trip, Trump announced that the U.S. was stopping its bombing attacks against Yemen’s Houthis. These attacks had been going on for almost two months. He said the rebels, who are supported by Iran, had promised to stop attacking ships on an important trade route for the world.

The government didn't tell Israel about the agreement before Trump announced it publicly. This was another time Trump didn't inform Israel about his talks with their shared enemies.

In March, the US government didn't tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the talks with Hamas about the war in Gaza until after they had already started. Also, Netanyahu only learned about the secret US talks with Iran about nuclear weapons when Trump announced them during Netanyahu's visit to the White House last month.

"Israel will protect itself," Netanyahu said last week after Trump announced a ceasefire with the Houthi group. "If others help us, like our American friends, that would be good."

William Wechsler, a senior person at the Atlantic Council, said it was interesting that Trump decided not to go to Israel on his first trip to the Middle East.

Wechsler said the main point is that the Gulf governments seem to be better friends with President Trump than the current Israeli government.

At the same time, Trump wants to continue his past work of making relations normal between the main powers in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump's plan, called the Abraham Accords, resulted in Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco agreeing to have normal relations with Israel.

However, Saudi Arabia has clearly said that to make peace with Israel, it wants security promises from the US, help with its nuclear energy plans, and steps towards an independent Palestinian state. It seems very hard to make progress on a Palestinian state while the war between Israel and Hamas is happening and Israel is planning to destroy and control Gaza.

Last week, Prince Mohammed welcomed Palestinian Vice President Hussein Sheikh in Jeddah. This was the sheikh's first trip outside his country since he became vice president in April.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a researcher, said the crown prince seemed to be telling Trump that Saudi Arabia wants to see progress on creating a Palestinian state before they can seriously start a peace agreement with Israel.

Abdul-Hussain said that because the Saudis often show what they plan to do, this is their way of saying, 'Don't even think about asking us to be friendly about making things normal.'