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President Donald Trump, in the first stop of his maiden trip abroad, received a regal welcome Saturday in Saudi Arabia, feted by the wealthy kingdom as he aims to forge strong alliances to combat terrorism while pushing past the multiple controversies threatening to engulf his young administration.
For one day, anyway, Trump appeared successful in keeping his domestic woes an ocean away, as he basked in the pageantry that began with an elaborate airport welcome ceremony punctuated by a military flyover and a handshake from Saudi King Salman.
He later was given a tour of one of Riyadh's most opulent palaces and sat through an elaborate signing ceremony in which, one by one, the Saudis agreed to military deals with the U.S. government and private businesses. And he largely kept a distance from reporters who were unable to ask about the tumult at home.
"That was a tremendous day. Tremendous investments in the United States," Trump said after a late day meeting with the Saudi crown prince, his only utterances to the press by late in the day. "Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs."