Former State Department official Mike Benz said Wednesday that President Donald Trump disrupted China’s access to vital Middle Eastern energy supplies while simultaneously locking in foreign investment in the U.S. economy.

Trump is currently on a Middle East tour aimed at securing major investments and strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates [UAE], and Qatar. During an appearance on “The Benny Show,” Benz said Trump not only delivered a blow to China’s access to Iranian energy but also orchestrated what he said was a global economic realignment.

“Trump is trying to have his Saudi Arabia and Israel, too, with Qatar in the mix. So we got $600 billion of investment now committed to from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. This adds to something like $200 billion from Japan,” Benz told Benny Johnson. “And we’ve seen, I think, [what] must be north of a trillion dollars of foreign investment in the U.S. that Trump has secured. This is, of course, in tandem with the tariff and trade policies, the idea of if we’re going to compete with China, we should be having foreign countries manufacturing their goods and investing [in] infrastructure here rather than in China.”

Benz looked back at Trump’s first-term foreign policy and said it was a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

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“So you’ve seen strings of successes. The Qatar development has been surprising to me, very interesting in terms of the 40 chess of it all. Qatar is obviously renowned as the leading ally of Iran. Trump was a pressure on Iran maximalist during his first term, got out of the Iran deal, put maximum sanctions on Iran, completely decimated their economy, forbade foreign countries from being able to buy their oil and gas,” Benz said. “Famously, he fought off China’s ability to get oil and gas from Iran.”

Benz contrasted this strategy with former President Joe Biden’s administration, accusing it of reversing Trump’s progress.

“But then when Biden won, two months into his term, China signed a $400 billion oil and gas deal with Iran, which is one of those things that they got bargain basement discount prices for the world’s second-largest supply of oil,” Benz said. “And it was another one of those foreign policy fumbles from Biden world. It’s almost like they want China to win in Iran. They want China to win in Brazil. They want China to win in Europe.”

Benz added that Trump is now trying to reverse those trends through renewed trade negotiations and diplomatic pressure.

“Trump is slowly turning the tide on. About 50% of that, we’re hearing that Trump has also negotiated a tariff ceasefire, a tariff deal with China as well,” Benz said. “But the Qatar development is interesting, as well, because, obviously, there are rumblings about discord with Netanyahu and Qatar being such a close ally of Iran. It has sparked this kind of diplomatic and culture war spillover.”

Trump on Tuesday announced a landmark $600 billion Saudi investment in the U.S.

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