Saudi Arabia and Turkey's leaders played a key role in convincing Trump to lift sanctions on Syria and meet with al-Sharaa.

U.S. President Donald Trump began a meeting with Syria's president in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, according to a Washington Post pool report, after a surprise U.S. announcement it would lift all sanctions on the Islamist-led government.

A British Bank of America analyst has been jailed for 10 years in Saudi Arabia apparently over a since-deleted social media post.

Although Trump recently attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, Saudi Arabia was originally intended to be his initial overseas destination, just like in his first term. It served as a gilded debut for a foreign policy focused on securing cash infusions for American businesses.

The United States agreed on Tuesday to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, according to a White House fact sheet that called it "the largest defense cooperation agreement" Washington has ever done.