Companies have announced billions in new investments in the United States while President Donald Trump has been traveling and signing deals in the Middle East this week.

The president has traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates so far this week to sign agreements and receive commitments that will generate roughly $2 trillion in trade and investment. At the same time, major companies have announced plans to invest billions more dollars into the United States.

Those corporate investments include: at least $20 billion over the next five years from the medical company Sanofi, $3 billion by Kraft Heinz to upgrade its U.S.-based manufacturing, a $1 billion investment from the energy company Carrier that will create an estimated 4,000 new jobs, a $300 million investment from Anheuser-Busch to improve the beer-maker’s manufacturing facilities, and a $150 million investment from Siemens Healthineers to expand production and relocate some manufacturing from Mexico to the United States.

The White House touted the new investments in a press release.

“While the President is securing historic investments on his trip in Middle East, billions of dollars’ worth of investments on the home front are pouring in. America is returning as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse thanks to President Trump’s leadership, brilliant economic agenda, and willingness to put America first,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told The Daily Wire in a statement.

The recent wave of investments comes as Trump has hopped around the Middle East signing and announcing massive economic commitments between the United States and some of the Gulf states.

On Thursday, Trump announced over $200 billion in commercial deals between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The deals include a commitment from Etihad Airways to purchase $14.5 billion worth of aircraft from Boeing and GE Aerospace. Emirates Global Aluminum plans to spend $4 billion to build an aluminum smelter in Oklahoma, the first of such plants built in the United States in 45 years.

On Wednesday, Trump was in Qatar to announce a new defense agreement in which the United States will sell billions-worth of U.S. weaponry to Qatar. Trump also signed an agreement to “generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion,” according to the White House.

Trump began his Middle East tour with a visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday with a $142 billion defense sales deal, the largest weapons deal in history. Saudi Arabia made a commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States.

WASHINGTON—Democrat lawmakers are blocking the confirmation of Brian Burch, President Donald Trump’s nomination for Ambassador to the Vatican, ahead of Pope Leo XVI’s installation as pontiff this Sunday.

Ambassadors are typically confirmed in large groups in order to speed up the process, given that there are 194 ambassadorial roles to fill. Yet in recent weeks, there have been a number of “cloture votes” in the Senate on Trump’s nominees, procedural votes requiring three-fifths of the Senate to vote in favor of the nominee.

“Democrats have thrown up an unprecedented level of obstruction for nominees that are usually allowed to compress their time,” a senior White House official told The Daily Wire, arguing that this type of obstruction is an assault “on the president’s officials and the president’s ability to stand up his government.”

“There’s been an unprecedented number of cloture votes, even for noncontroversial nominees, of which Mr. Brian Burch is one of those individuals,” that official explained.

Burch is the president and co-founder of CatholicVote, an organization dedicated to inspiring and mobilizing Catholics toward traditional Catholic teaching. He’s considered well-qualified by the White House and is supported by a wide range of organizations, but his vocal adherence to the Catholic magisterium on issues like life, gender, and marriage are likely to have angered Democrats as well.

President Trump’s pick for Ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, is a PATRIOT. 👏

“My father taught me that America is the greatest country in the world, and to never take for granted our freedom.” pic.twitter.com/q7R8xxOBLr

— CatholicVote (@CatholicVote) April 8, 2025

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations advanced his nomination to the full Senate for official confirmation in May, but he has yet to be confirmed. That delay is significant given the recent death of Pope Francis and the subsequent election of Pope Leo XIV.

The hold up on Burch’s confirmation has drawn the ire of Republicans like Eric Schmitt, the senator for Missouri, who slammed such attempts publicly on Wednesday after he went on the Senate floor and asked for unanimous consent for the Senate to approve Burch’s nomination. Democrats stood up and objected, further delaying the process.

“I never thought I’d see a day that resistance would mean holding up the ambassador to the Holy See, to be there for the installation of the pope, but here is where we are, total brokenness from the other side,” Schmitt said scathingly from the Senate floor.

His remarks were an effort to “smoke out the Democrats in their extraordinarily obstructionist and radical approach” to the issue, a senior White House official said. Schmitt was executing a process that normally occurs in private in the Senate, but this time, required more publicity, the official suggested, praising the senator for putting pressure on Democrats.

And at this moment in history, they said, it is critical that the United States have an ambassador to the Holy See.

“We have a new pope, the American government needs to establish new relationships with Vatican City, obviously a critical faith leader for so many billions of people around the world,” the official reflected. “And Democrats, in order to attack the president and make a political point, are impeding the formation of this incredibly important relationship and insulting millions of American Catholics in the bargain. It’s a pretty critical situation.”

In a social media video posted this week, Schmitt argued that “Pope Francis passed away a couple weeks ago,” and that since Pope Leo is the first American pope (“a big deal”) being installed this weekend, “it would be nice to have the Ambassador to the Holy See, Senate-approved, to go to that in time for this weekend.”

“This is a next-level obstruction,” he argued. “Now, we’re going to get through this. We’re going to spend the time to grind these [confirmations] out. But I just think it speaks to how broken these Democrats are…they can’t find their bearings. They have not come to grips with the election loss in November. They’re swinging at every pitch, there’s no doubt about that. And they look foolish.”