Donald Trump's Middle East trip had been billed as a dealmaking opportunity — and it's been living up to that expectation.

U.S. chip maker Nvidia will partner with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund-owned AI startup Humain and will ship 18,000 chips to the Middle Eastern nation to help power a new data center project.

Or that he effectively auctioned off the first destination on his first major foreign trip, heading to Saudi Arabia because the kingdom was ready to make big investments in U.S. companies.It’s not even that the Trump family has fast-growing business ties in the Middle East that run deep and offer the potential of vast profits.

“Trump is there to solidify a very close relationship,” said Ali Shihabi, a political and economic expert who is close to the Saudi government, adding that although he did not expect a breakthrough o...