President Donald Trump begins a weeklong trip to the Middle East on Monday. Trump will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, though his most pressing regional challenges concern two other countries: Israel and Iran. Meanwhile, U.S. stocks are leaping in early trading after China and the United States announced a 90-day truce in their trade war. Also Monday, Trump signed a sweeping executive order setting a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. or face new limits over what the government will pay.
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Trump en route to the Middle East on the first major foreign trip of 2nd term
Air Force One took off from a military base outside of Washington at 11:39 a.m. ET.
It will refuel at a military base in the United Kingdom before arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday morning local time. Trump is also stopping in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates before landing back in the United States at the end of the week.
The president made a quick trip to Rome at the end of April to attend the funeral for Pope Francis, but the Middle East swing was always meant to be the first major foreign trip of his return to office.
Trump signs sweeping executive order for lower Rx drug costs
Trump has signed a sweeping executive order setting a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. or face new limits over what the government will pay.
The order the Republican president signed Monday calls on the health department to broker new price tags for drugs.
If a deal is not reached, a new rule will kick in tying the price of what the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries.
Public health agency leaders will start meeting with drug companies to offer new prices over the next month. Drugmakers argue threats to their profits could impact research to develop new drugs.
Trump floats the idea of Turkey detour for Ukraine-Russia talks during Mideast trip
The president said he’s optimistic about Thursday’s expected talks between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul on finding an endgame to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Trump, who is expected to be in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, suggested that he could make a detour to Turkey, if he thinks his presence might be helpful.
“I was thinking about flying over. I don’t know where I am going be on Thursday,” Trump said. “I’ve got so many meetings … There’s a possibility there I guess if I think things can happen.”
Trump added there is “the potential for a good meeting” between Putin and Zelenskyy.
“Don’t underestimate Thursday in Turkey, President Erdogan is the great host,” Trump said.
Trump says he's weighing the removal of sanctions from Syria
“We may want to take them off of Syria, because we want to give them a fresh start,” said Trump, adding that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged him to do so.
The comments were striking change in tone from the president on Syria sanctions and the government of . Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
Al-Sharaa took power after his Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led an offensive that toppled former President Bashar Assad in December.
The Trump administration has yet to formally recognize the new Syrian government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, and HTS remains a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Sanctions imposed on Damascus under Assad also remain in place.
Hawks in the White House and the Republican Party have been skeptical of al-Sharaa’s transformation and insist Syria remains a counterterrorism issue.
Trump defends Qatar’s gift of a plane as a ‘gesture of good faith’
Trump says the leadership of Qatar knew that Boeing has encountered delays building the next generation of the Air Force One aircraft and wanted to help by giving a plane to the U.S. government.
He said, “I could be a stupid person and say we don’t want a free plane” but that the gift from Qatar “helps us out” because the models he currently flies on are decades old.
“This was just a gesture of good faith,” Trump said.
News of the $400 million gift prompted criticism from some Democrats and Trump allies.
Trump said the plane would ultimately be decommissioned and go to his future presidential library. He said he would not fly on it after he leaves office.
Trump says he’s allowing white South Africans to come to US to avoid ‘genocide’
Trump said that he’s allowing white farmers from South Africa to come to the United States as refugees because of the “genocide that’s taking place.”
Trump said that in a post-apartheid South Africa that white farmers are “being killed” and he plans to address the issue with South African leadership next week.
Trump said he doesn’t care whether the South African farmers are “white or Black” or “about their height, their weight.”
But at a time when the administration has sought to halt refugee admissions from many other countries undergoing political upheaval, Trump said the U.S. has “essentially extended citizenship” to South African farmers to escape from the violence.
Drug price negotiations to begin, Oz says
Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, says he and other top health officials will begin talks with drugmakers to discuss lowering prices over the next 30 days.
“They’re patriotic Americans,” Oz said. “They want what’s right.”
The executive order being signed by Trump on Monday gives the administration 30 days to negotiate lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. If there is no deal, the U.S. will tie domestic drug prices to the lower rates paid abroad, which is the so-called “most favored nation” policy.
Senate Democrats denounce Trump accepting luxury Qatari plane
Democratic Sens. Cory Booker, Chris Coons, Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz issued a joint statement contending that President Donald Trump would engage in “a clear conflict of interest” if he accepted a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar.
Multiple news outlets on Sunday reported that Trump was set to be gifted the plane, which would be used as Air Force One during his term and then transferred to a personal foundation.
The senators called on their colleagues to reassert that lawmakers cannot take gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval.
“Air Force One is more than just a plane — it’s a symbol of the presidency and of the United States itself,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Any president who accepts this kind of gift, valued at $400 million, from a foreign government creates a clear conflict of interest, raises serious national security questions, invites foreign influence, and undermines public trust in our government. No one — not even the president — is above the law.”
Trump promotes executive order meant to reduce drug costs
Trump says he’s directing his administration officials to investigate foreign countries that “extort” drug companies
The order, according to a White House official, also sets a 30-day deadline for the U.S. Health Department to broker new price tags for drugs. If a deal is not reached, a new rule will kick in that will tie the price of what the U.S. pays for medications to the lowest price paid by other countries.
As he signed the order, he called it “one of the most consequential executive orders in our country’s history.”
“Starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries, which is what we were doing,” Trump said. “We were subsidizing others’ health care.”
— By Seung Min Kim
Homeland Security says it’s targeting California over benefits to immigrants
The Department of Homeland Security says it is opening an investigation into a California program that pays money to some immigrants.
The Department said Monday that it had issued a subpoena to California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants to obtain records about the program.
That California program was created when Congress in 1996 took away federal Supplemental Security Income assistance for legal immigrants in a welfare reform law.
According to the program’s website, it pays money to elderly, blind and disabled people in California who are not citizens. The website says the program is entirely paid for by California.
The Trump administration has targeted states and communities that it considers to be lax when it comes to immigration enforcement.
Trump says EU “nastier” on trade than China
Fresh off a 90-day tariff rollback to hold talks with China, President Donald Trump said that on trade issues, the “European Union is in many ways nastier than China.”
Trump said while speaking on Monday at the White House that the EU would “come down a lot” on trade restrictions regarding the U.S., tearing into the longstanding ally. The U.S. president insisted that America has “all the cards” in trade talks with Europe because of the vehicles it buys from the continent’s automakers.
Trump said his executive order on pharmaceutical drug prices would mean that Europeans will have “to pay more for health care, and we’re going to have to pay less.”
The U.S. has a separate negotiating period on trade in which goods from the EU are being charged 10% import taxes.
Trump cheers special envoy for hostage Edan Alexander’s expected release from Gaza
Trump said that the U.S.-Israeli citizen was expected to be released by Hamas in the “next two hours” or “sometime today.”
“He’s coming home to his parents, which is really great news,” Trump told reporters at the White House shortly before he was scheduled to depart for a whirlwind visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
Trump credited his special envoy Steve Witkoff in helping win the release of Alexander, 21.
The president said that Witkoff, a New York real estate developer turned diplomat, knew “very little about the subject matter” but learned quickly.
“He has a special way about him,” Trump said of Witkoff.
Trump plans to speak with Xi after agreeing to tariff reduction for 90 days
President Donald Trump says he will likely speak with China’s leader Xi Jinping “maybe at the end of the week.”
That’s after negotiators from the U.S. and China meeting in Switzerland this weekend agreed to reduce tariffs for 90 days of talks. The import taxes on China imposed by the U.S. would still remain higher than when Trump took office at 30%.
Trump told reporters on Monday that the reduced tariff rates didn’t include tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum as well as the potentially upcoming import taxes on pharmaceutical drugs.
Trump said he also spoke with Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday and he expected the tech company to make additional commitments to invest in domestic production.
Trump said the talks would be great for “unification and peace.”
Trump suggests promise of trade with US was factor in India-Pakistan ceasefire
Trump says the countries ended hostilities for a lot of reasons “but trade is a big one.”
Speaking at the White House on Monday, the president said the U.S. is already negotiating a trade deal with India and will soon start negotiating with Pakistan.
India and Pakistan reached an understanding to stop all military actions on land, in the air and at the sea Saturday in a U.S.-brokered ceasefire to stop the escalating hostilities between the two nuclear-armed rivals that threatened regional peace.
Bessent expects next U.S.-China meeting in a few weeks
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent praised the progress made in in trade talks with Chinese officials over the weekend and said he expects another meeting in a few weeks.
U.S. and China announced a 90-day pause on tariffs after the weekend talks in Geneva.
“We had a plan, we had a process and now what we have with the Chinese is a mechanism to avoid an upward tariff pressure like we did last time,” Bessent said on CNBC.
Trump administration looking to expand legal power on deportation
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller says the Trump administration is looking for ways to expand its legal power to deport migrants who are in the United States illegally.
To achieve that, he says the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.
Such a move would be aimed at migrants as part of the Republican president’s broader crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The Constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller told reporters outside the White House on Friday.
“So, I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at,” Miller said. “Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”
Trump's plan to change pricing model for some medications faces opposition
Trump’s plan to change the pricing model for some medications is already facing fierce criticism from the pharmaceutical industry before he’s even signed the executive order set for Monday that, if implemented, could lower the cost of some drugs.
Trump has promised that his plan — which is likely to tie the price of medications covered by Medicare and administered in a doctor’s office to the lowest price paid by other countries — will significantly lower drug costs.
But the nation’s leading pharmaceutical lobby on Sunday pushed back, calling it a “bad deal” for American patients. Drugmakers have long argued that any threats to their profits could impact the research they do to develop new drugs.
White House releases Trump schedule for Monday
The White House has released President Donald Trump's schedule for Monday. Trump is scheduled to hold a press conference with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the White House at 9:30 a.m. Trump says he’ll sign an executive order that, if implemented, could bring down the costs of some medications — reviving a failed effort from his first term on an issue he’s talked up since even before becoming president.
Shortly after, Trump will begin his weeklong trip to the Middle East. Trump will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, though his most pressing regional challenges concern two other countries: Israel and Iran.
Trump ready to accept gift of luxury jet from Qatar
President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week, and U.S. officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft.
The Qatari government said a final decision hadn’t been made. Still, Trump defended the idea — what would amount to a president accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government — as a fiscally smart move for the country.
The Associated Press
