Here’s the latest.

President Trump announced on Tuesday that he would end sanctions on Syria, saying at the start of his four-day tour of the Middle East that he had decided to do so after consulting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and the president of Turkey. The announcement drew rousing applause at an investment forum in Riyadh attended by some of the world’s business elite and members of the Saudi royal family.

“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” he said, referring to the alliance that ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December after a devastating 13-year civil war. According to a White House official and a regional official with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s plans, he intends to meet with Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Shara, on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.

The sanctions decision, which Mr. Trump said he reached after talking with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, was a surprise start to the first major international trip of his second term. Mr. Trump’s tour of the Gulf is expected to focus mostly on securing business deals with some of the region’s wealthiest economies.

The White House on Tuesday said that Mr. Trump, while in Riyadh, had secured $600 billion in deals with the Saudi government and firms. But the details the White House provided about the agreements were vague and totaled less than half that number. And a closer look at the projects the administration described shows several were already in the works before Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January.

In his remarks at the Saudi conference, Mr. Trump talked up his own economic policies, calling the United States “the hottest country, with the exception of your country” in remarks that name-checked the crown prince several times.

Here’s what else to know:

• A warm welcome: Mr. Trump landed in Riyadh to a lavish welcome by the Saudi kingdom, which rolled out an honor guard, a team of Arabian horses and a delegation of royals and business leaders. Prince Mohammed greeted him on a lavender carpet. It marked a significant shift from the tenor of the relationship under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who once vowed to make the kingdom a “pariah” before realizing he needed its help to lower oil prices. In 2022, Mr. Biden confronted the crown prince over the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and the kingdom has grown increasingly autocratic as Prince Mohammed consolidated power with the arrests of hundreds of people.
• Seeking investment: Mr. Trump has told advisers he wants to secure business agreements worth more than $1 trillion on his Gulf tour, a number that economists and experts said was unrealistic. Deals are expected to include Saudi investments in artificial intelligence companies and energy production, as well as multibillion-dollar arms purchases from U.S. weapons manufacturers. Some of America’s biggest business leaders were on hand to attend the investment forum, including Elon Musk and the chief executives of IBM, BlackRock, Citigroup, Palantir and Nvidia.
• Diplomatic relations: Mr. Trump went after Iran in his remarks at the conference, calling it “the biggest and most destructive” force threatening the stability and prosperity of the Middle East, and vowing it would never have a nuclear weapon. But there was silence in the crowd after he said it was his “fervent wish” that Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, a 2020 deal in which two of its neighbors established diplomatic relations with Israel. The normalization of relations with the Israeli government is deeply unpopular among Saudis, according to polling, and officials say doing so hinges on the creation of a Palestinian state.
• Family interests: The president’s trip neatly tracks with the financial interests of him and his family, which has pending deals with a majority-Saudi-owned real estate firm, a cryptocurrency deal with an affiliate of the government of the United Arab Emirates, and a new golf and luxury villa project backed by the government of Qatar.
• Qatari gift: The Trump administration is also poised to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane as a donation from Qatar’s royal family in what could be the biggest foreign gift ever received by the U.S. government. Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, is expected to announce on Tuesday that he intends to put a hold on Mr. Trump’s appointees to the Justice Department until he gets more information about the president’s plans to accept the jet.

• Ukraine talks: Mr. Trump has said that he would consider joining a potential meeting between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia this week in Turkey to discuss a peace deal. His presence would raise the stakes as Moscow defies European leaders’ calls for a cease-fire.

• Oil and an orb: Past visits by U.S. presidents to Saudi Arabia have produced some memorable — and odd — moments.

The Latest on the Trump Administration

• Library of Congress Standoff: The president named Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and the president’s former personal lawyer, as the acting librarian. But staff members refused access to two department officials he chose for key roles at Congress’s main research arm.
• Bondi Embraces Role of TV Messenger: Attorney General Pam Bondi has adopted a conspicuously performative approach, willing to execute White House directives with little fuss.
• Repealing Appliance Efficiency Rules: The Energy Department said that it was preparing to roll back energy and water conservation standards for a long list of electric and gas appliances. Energy-efficiency experts and climate advocates said the moves would increase the cost of running household appliances.
• Qatari Jet: The administration’s plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari royal family is only the latest example of an increasingly no-holds-barred atmosphere in Washington under Trump 2.0.
• Trump’s Middle East Visit : The president has few meetings directly about pressing geopolitical challenges. Instead, he’s in the Persian Gulf to make deals.
• White South Africans Granted Refugee Status: The first group of Afrikaners have arrived in the United States, claiming they were victims of persecution or had reason to fear persecution in their home country. Here’s what we know.

How We Report on the Trump Administration

Hundreds of readers asked about our coverage of the president. Times editors and reporters responded to some of the most common questions.