Economy

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia signed hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of deals during a visit by President Trump over the weekend. Among them: $50B of energy agreements with Saudi Aramco (Private:ARMCO), a $40B U.S. infrastructure fund created with Blackstone (NYSE:BX), and an arms deal worth $350B over a decade (the largest in U.S. history).

The next stop for President Trump is a two-day visit to Israel, where he will separately meet with Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas after stating their conflict is "maybe not as difficult as people have thought." He'll also visit several holy sites and Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, following his stop in Riyadh, where he urged Islamic leaders to focus on unity in the fight against "terrorism."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won re-election by a wide margin Saturday, getting an endorsement for efforts to seek better ties with the West and attract more foreign investment. In his first term, he negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and recently pledged to get the remaining sanctions lifted against the Islamic Republic.

Ramping up the pace of its testing, Pyongyang has successfully launched its second ballistic missile in a little more than a week (and the 11th missile it has fired this year). "Many more 'Juche weapons' capable of striking the U.S. will be launched from this land," North Korea's Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary Sunday, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

The 11 members of the TPP have agreed to pursue their trade deal without the U.S. at a forum of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. "I believe at some point there will be a series of bilateral agreements with partners in this part of the world," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said at the conference. "Bilateral negotiations are better for the U.S. than multilateral negotiations."

Promising to work on closer eurozone ties in their first official meeting in Paris, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Emmanuel Macron's election has been an "injection of trust and hope for Europe" and pushed for a common European migration policy. In turn, the French President called for a long-term roadmap to create a common euro area budget and strengthen European institutions.

The U.K. will walk away from Brexit talks unless the EU drops demands to charge it €100B to leave the bloc, Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Sunday Times. Negotiations would otherwise be plunged into "chaos," and even a £1B would be "a lot of money," he added. "We don't need to just look like we can walk away, we need to be able to walk away."

Vowing to remain in power, Brazilian President Michel Temer has asked the Supreme Court to suspend its investigation into allegations he was involved in a giant corruption scandal. "Our country will not go off the rails - I will continue at the front of the government," he declared, claiming an audio recording of him supporting bribery payments was edited afterwards.

Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih will visit Iraq today to discuss the extension of an OPEC-led oil output cut. The talks are significant because Iraq, the second largest OPEC producer, has displayed the greatest reluctance to commit to a supply cap. Most expect an extension of the existing output deal by 6 or 9 months when members meet Thursday for a formal OPEC meeting in Vienna.