特朗普希望沙特把所有的钱都投资到美国
【中美创新时报2025 年 5 月 13 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）特朗普总统于周二开始访问沙特阿拉伯，并提出了一份 1 万亿美元的美国投资愿望清单——这一金额相当于沙特阿拉伯去年的国内生产总值。《纽约时报》记者薇薇安·内雷姆对此作了下述报道。
特朗普总统于周二开始访问沙特阿拉伯，并提出了一份 1 万亿美元的美国投资愿望清单——这一金额相当于沙特阿拉伯去年的国内生产总值。
沙特王储将在特朗普担任总统期间提供 6000 亿美元。
经济学家表示，这两个数字都不现实。
沙特阿拉伯自身有大量耗资巨大的大型项目要建设，而油价又远低于其支出所需的资金水平，因此面临着预算赤字，今年可能飙升至700多亿美元。沙特阿拉伯的借款方式越来越多，而不是放贷。
但这并没有阻止沙特王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼——沙特威权君主制的实际领导人——在今年1月承诺，在特朗普执政期间向美国投资6000亿美元。不久之后，特朗普称他为“了不起的人”。
特朗普随后表示，他将要求王储将这一数字凑整至1万亿美元。此外，还要降低沙特巨额财富的来源——石油的价格。
“我们对他们很好，”特朗普说。
经济学家表示，特朗普执政期间，沙特对美国的投资可能会增加，但不太可能达到 1 万亿美元。
特朗普寻求的数字超过了沙特庞大主权财富基金中所有资产的价值，该基金价值约 9250 亿美元，大部分与国内资产有关。
“我不明白他们如何能筹集到接近 6000 亿美元，更不用说 1 万亿美元了，”经济学家、前国际货币基金组织驻沙特阿拉伯代表团团长蒂姆·卡伦 (Tim Callen) 表示。
事实上，在 10 月份王储举行的旗舰投资论坛上，沙特主权财富基金负责人亚西尔·鲁马扬 (Yasir al-Rumayyan) 表示，他的目标是减少该基金资产中投资于海外的比例。
“我们更加关注国内经济，”他表示，并称这是一个“重大的范式转变”。
但对特朗普和王储穆罕默德来说，这些细节并非重点。卡伦说，他们说着同一种语言，形容他们是“两个喜欢把大数字抛来抛去的人”。
特朗普与沙特建立了牢固的商业联系。在其第一任期内，他的女婿兼顾问贾里德·库什纳与沙特王储穆罕默德建立了密切的关系，两人都具有交易思维。
特朗普和王储都喜欢发表令人瞠目结舌的声明，而其可行性问题则留给下属去解决。
在某些情况下，王储穆罕默德的宏大宣言已取得成果。他迅速放松了这个曾经极端保守的王国的社会限制，允许女性大量加入劳动力大军，允许青少年在沙漠中狂欢跳舞。其他一些计划，例如一项原本可能成为全球最大太阳能项目的2000亿美元太阳能项目，则被悄然搁置。
特朗普声称，他在2017年访问沙特期间，在美国获得了4500亿美元的投资。但卡伦表示，他分析了公开数据，并认定这笔投资并未完全兑现。
卡伦发现，特朗普 2017 年至 2020 年任职期间，美国对沙特阿拉伯的商品和服务出口总额为 920 亿美元，低于 2017 年结束的巴拉克·奥巴马总统第二任期内的总额。
当被问及这一差异以及特朗普在即将到来的访问中争取 1 万亿美元投资的目标时，白宫通讯主任张四平表示，总统“已经成功地为美国经济争取到了超过 5 万亿美元的新投资——带来了制造业，促进了生产，创造了高薪就业机会。”
特朗普表示，正是数千亿美元的投资前景促使他优先选择沙特阿拉伯作为本届任期内首次重大海外访问的起点——就像他在 2017 年第一任期内所做的那样。
继沙特之后，特朗普此行还将访问另外两个富裕的波斯湾盟友——卡塔尔和阿联酋。
他本周对沙特阿拉伯的国事访问预计将是一次盛大的盛事，与总统乔·拜登 2022 年对沙特阿拉伯相对冷淡的访问形成鲜明对比。
在特朗普首次对沙特进行国事访问期间，沙特政府以传统剑舞欢迎特朗普，并在首都利雅得豪华的丽思卡尔顿酒店外墙上投射了他的肖像。
正如上次一样，沙特官员计划在总统抵达后宣布一系列交易。
沙特政府将于周二举办一场投资论坛，众多美国商界领袖将出席，其中包括IBM、贝莱德和花旗集团的首席执行官。其中许多人已经与沙特有联系。
彭博首席新兴市场经济学家齐亚德·达乌德表示，考虑到其主权财富基金的支出，沙特阿拉伯需要油价达到每桶108美元左右才能勉强维持收支平衡。目前，布伦特原油价格徘徊在每桶60美元以上。
达乌德说，沙特官员可以向美国投资大笔资金，但他们需要借钱来实现这一目标。
他补充道：“1万亿美元是遥不可及的。”
达乌德说，许多人认为沙特阿拉伯是一个“提供赠款、贷款和投资”的国家，但这种情况已经改变。
高盛中东经济学家法鲁克·苏萨表示，为了增加对美国的投资，沙特官员也可以重新平衡其投资组合——或许可以通过出售其他国家的资产来实现。但他们不太可能释放出1万亿美元。
苏萨估计，沙特王国的海外资产总额约为 1.4 万亿美元，其中很大一部分已经在美国。
他说：“谁也说不准有多少可以转移到美国。”
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：2017年，特朗普总统在首都利雅得机场受到沙特阿拉伯国王萨勒曼的迎接。斯蒂芬·克劳利/纽约时报
附原英文报道：
Trump wants Saudi Arabia to invest its money in the United States. All of it.
By Vivian Nereim New York Times,Updated May 12, 2025, 7:15 p.m.
President Trump was greeted by King Salman of Saudi Arabia at the airport in the capital, Riyadh, in 2017.STEPHEN CROWLEY/NYT
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump embarks on a visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday with a $1 trillion wish list for investments in the United States — a sum equivalent to the kingdom’s entire gross domestic product last year.
The Saudi crown prince is offering $600 billion during Trump’s presidency.
Neither figure is realistic, economists say.
With a laundry list of its own costly megaprojects to build and with oil prices well below the level needed to finance its spending, Saudi Arabia is facing a budget deficit that could balloon to more than $70 billion this year. It is increasingly borrowing money rather than lending it.
But that did not stop Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of the authoritarian Saudi monarchy, from pledging in January to invest $600 billion in the United States while Trump is in office. Not long after that, Trump called him a “fantastic guy.”
Then Trump said he would ask the crown prince to round that figure up to $1 trillion. And bring down the price of oil — the source of the kingdom’s vast wealth — to boot.
“We’ve been very good to them,” Trump said.
Economists said Saudi investments in the United States would probably increase during Trump’s administration but were unlikely to even approach $1 trillion.
The figure that Trump is seeking exceeds the value of all assets in the kingdom’s hefty sovereign wealth fund, which is worth about $925 billion and largely tied up in domestic holdings.
“I don’t see how they get anywhere close to $600 billion, let alone $1 trillion,” said Tim Callen, an economist and former International Monetary Fund mission chief to Saudi Arabia.
In fact, at the crown prince’s flagship investment forum in October, Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, said he was aiming to decrease the percentage of the fund’s assets that were invested abroad.
“We’re more focused on the domestic economy,” he said, calling this a “big paradigm shift.”
But for Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed, these finer details are not necessarily the point. They speak the same language, Callen said, describing them as “two guys who like throwing very large numbers around.”
Trump has cultivated strong business ties with Saudi Arabia. During his first term, his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner developed a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed, and the two shared a transactional mindset.
Trump and the crown prince both have a penchant for eye-popping declarations, leaving questions about feasibility for their underlings to sort out.
In some cases, Crown Prince Mohammed’s grand pronouncements have come to fruition. He has rapidly loosened social restrictions in the once-ultraconservative kingdom, enabling women to pour into the labor force and teenagers to dance at raves in the desert. Other plans, such as a $200 billion solar energy project that would have been the largest in the world, have been quietly swept aside.
Trump has claimed that, during his 2017 Saudi visit, he secured $450 billion of investments in the United States. But Callen said he analyzed public data and determined that this amount did not fully materialize.
The export of American goods and services to Saudi Arabia while Trump was in office from 2017-20 totaled $92 billion, Callen found, less than the total during President Barack Obama’s second term, which ended in 2017.
Asked about this discrepancy and about Trump’s target of securing $1 trillion in investments on the coming visit, the White House communications director Steven Cheung said the president “has already successfully secured more than $5 trillion in new investments into the US economy — bringing manufacturing, boosting production and creating high-paying jobs.”
Trump has said it was the prospect of hundreds of billions of dollars in investments that prompted him to prioritize Saudi Arabia to kick off his first major overseas tour of this term — as he did in 2017 during his first term.
After Saudi Arabia, Trump will visit two other wealthy Persian Gulf allies on this trip, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
His state visit to Saudi Arabia this week is expected to be a spectacular affair, full of pageantry that contrasts sharply to President Joe Biden’s relatively chilly visit to the kingdom in 2022.
During Trump’s first Saudi state visit, he was welcomed with a traditional sword dance and an image of his face projected onto the facade of the lavish Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, the capital.
As they did last time, Saudi officials are planning to announce a flurry of deals after the president arrives.
The government is hosting an investment forum Tuesday with a long roster of American business leaders, including the CEOs of IBM, BlackRock, and Citigroup. Many of them already have Saudi ties.
Accounting for spending by its sovereign wealth fund, Saudi Arabia needs oil prices at about $108 a barrel for the state to simply break even, said Ziad Daoud, Bloomberg’s chief emerging-market economist. The price of Brent crude is currently hovering above $60 a barrel.
Saudi officials could invest large sums in the United States, but they would need to borrow to do it, Daoud said.
“And $1 trillion is far-fetched,” he added.
Many people think of Saudi Arabia as a country “that gives grants and loans and investments,” but that has changed, Daoud said.
To invest more in the United States, Saudi officials could also rebalance their portfolio — perhaps by selling assets in other countries, said Farouk Soussa, a Middle East economist at Goldman Sachs. But it is improbable that they could free up $1 trillion.
Soussa estimated that the kingdom’s total assets abroad were about $1.4 trillion, much of which is already in the United States.
“How much is available to shift into the U.S. is anyone’s guess,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
