Donald Trump is on the final day of his Middle East tour. The White House schedule shows he will return to Washington despite previously labelling his travel plans as “destination unknown”. Follow live and listen to Trump 100 below as you scroll.
Friday 16 May 2025 11:31, UK
It’s wheels up for Air Force One, and with that, Donald Trump’s tour of the Middle East is over.
He’s been to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and is now heading back to Washington DC via a brief stop in the UK.
It’s a short walk out of a building at Abu Dhabi International Airport and into Air Force One for Donald Trump.
He turns to the cameras and gives one last pose before heading inside the plane.
Donald Trump is about to leave Abu Dhabi on Air Force One, bringing his Middle East tour to a close.
He’s behind schedule but confirmed earlier he’s returning to the US – not heading to Turkey where Ukraine-Russia talks are taking place.
You can watch his departure via the live YouTube stream below.
Let’s take you back to more comments from Donald Trump now, who is preparing to leave Abu Dhabi and bring an end to his Middle East tour.
He will be boarding Air Force One at Abu Dhabi International Airport, but didn’t seem to happy about it.
“I leave now and get into a 42-year-old Boeing,” he told reporters.
“The new ones are coming, new ones are coming.”
Earlier, we told you how Trump was speaking of his love for Boeing planes (see 8.54 post).
“It’s just my opinion, but Boeing makes the best planes,” he said.
“They’ve had some headaches over the last few years, but they make the best planes.”
That comes after Trump said it would be “stupid” not to accept the gift of a free Qatari plane to replace Air Force One.
You can read more about perhaps the most recognisable symbol of America on the global stage in the story below.
Donald Trump “ripped up the American foreign policy rulebook” during his tour of the Middle East, our US correspondent Mark Stone has said.
“This was a highly significant visit to the Middle East by an American president and the president who is seen us a disrupter,” he said.
“He criticised Western intervention in these Middle East countries over years gone by and said look at what you’ve managed to do and you’ve done it the Arabian way.”
Stone added Trump has “had a good time” and “enjoyed it” while being in his comfort zone, but pointed out the lack of progress on the major diplomatic challenges.
“He will head back feeling like he’s had a good week… with massive investment to, as he would say, make America great again,” Stone said.
“But on those big diplomatic challenges, Ukraine and Gaza, no progress yet.”
Watch his full analysis in the video below.
As Donald Trump prepares to head back to Washington DC, he’s given an update on his tariffs.
He said the US will be sending letters out to around 150 countries in the next two to three weeks, alerting them to how much they will be paying to do business in the US.
But with Trump’s Middle East tour coming to an end, what kind of tariffs did he impose on the three countries he’s visited this week?
After all, the president has largely touted the trip as an economic win, by encouraging deals with American firms.
Yet despite Trump’s talk of a new era of Middle East relations, he still slapped the following tariffs on his three hosts:
All three countries received the 10% “baseline” tariff on Trump’s “Liberation Day”, avoiding specific reciprocal tariffs that were placed on the “worst offenders”.
The UK also received the 10% rate, which still stands for some goods despite the outline trade deal reached between Washington and London earlier this month.
It’s worth noting that Trump paused his higher rate of tariffs for 90 days at the start of last month, bringing the majority of countries down to the 10% rate.
Watch the moment Trump unveiled the tariffs chart last month:
Donald Trump has issued a warning to Iran after his comments yesterday were labelled as “naive” by Tehran, saying the situation will be done “nicely or not nicely”.
The US president claimed Iran had “sort of” agreed to the terms of a nuclear deal, and insisted they can’t have a nuclear weapon.
It came after reports that a top Iranian official said the country is prepared to make a number of concessions related to its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
But the country’s president rejected what Trump had to say, describing him as “naive for thinking he can come to our region, threaten us, and hope that we back down against his demands”.
“We will never negotiate our dignity, this is in the blood of every Iranian,” Pezeshkian said, according to Iranian media.
After being presented with investments from the United Arab Emirates, Donald Trump turned to the media to discuss a range of topics.
He started by confirming “I am going back home” despite calls for him to join Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Turkey.
But he also said he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin “as soon as we can set it up”.
“I think it’s time for us to just do it,” he told reporters in Abu Dhabi.
“I said if I don’t go, I guarantee Putin’s not going… we’re going to get it done, we’ve got to get it done.”
Back to Abu Dhabi, where Donald Trump has been meeting and greeting businesses, who were talking up their investments from the United Arab Emirates in the US.
He started with energy, with the giant screen in front of him titled “Making Energy Great Again”.
Sultan al Jaber, the head of UAE oil giant ADNOC, told Trump that the Gulf Arab state and the US plan to spend $440bn in the energy sector until 2035.
Trump presented with ‘drop of oil’
At the end of the presentation, Trump was gifted a box containing oil.
He was quick to open it and turn towards the camera before cracking a joke, saying “this is one drop of oil”.
“The highest quality oil there is on the planet and they only gave me a drop of it… so I’m not thrilled,” he joked.
Trump was later taken to a screen showing the aviation sector, and spoke of his love for Boeing planes.
“It’s just my opinion, but Boeing makes the best planes,” he said.
“They’ve had some headaches over the last few years, but they make the best planes.”
Away from Abu Dhabi for a moment, US secretary of state Marco Rubio has touched down in Istanbul.
He’s leading a US delegation in talks with Turkey and Ukraine before Russian and Ukrainian officials meet later this morning.
You can also follow updates in our live page below.
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