Miami mayor joins Trump in Saudi Arabia during president’s Middle East tour
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was scheduled to attend a luncheon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday to kick off President Donald Trump’s multi-day Gulf tour, where the president hopes to secure major investment deals worth over $1 trillion.
The guest list for Tuesday’s luncheon was packed with business leaders, Saudi dignitaries and high-ranking Trump officials, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the president of FIFA. Other guests included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
Suarez, who appears on the guest list as “Mayor of Miami,” was listed under a category for “foreign businessmen and businesswomen.” He appears to be the only municipal government official from the U.S. on the guest list.
In a statement to the Miami Herald on Tuesday, Suarez’s spokesperson, Ana Isabel Hume, said the mayor “fulfills both his public responsibilities and his private-sector roles, which together expand his reach and impact.” Suarez, whose mayoral role is considered part-time, also works as a private attorney.
“While he is traveling in a private capacity, he is attending this event as the Mayor of Miami,” Hume said. “No expenses are being covered by the City of Miami. As is standard for this part-time position, Mayor Suarez holds other professional roles and his unique ability to build relationships, attract investments, and elevate Miami’s global profile reflects the broader value he brings to the city and its residents.”
Suarez’s office did not directly respond to questions asking who invited him or the purpose of his trip.
Suarez has a yearslong history with Saudi Arabia, including through the international litigation firm where he is of counsel, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Quinn Emanuel counts FIFA and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund among its clients. A spokesperson for Quinn Emanuel declined to say whether Suarez was traveling as a representative for the firm.
During a Saudi regime-backed trade summit in February, Suarez announced that Saudi Arabia was opening an investment office in Miami. Suarez said at the time that he was speaking onstage in his official capacity as mayor but attending the conference, called FII Priority, as an attorney for Quinn Emanuel.
READ MORE: The kingdom and I: How Miami’s mayor helped Saudi Arabia rehab its bloody reputation
That conference series was the subject of a congressional probe into how Saudi Arabia has bought its way into popular U.S. institutions to reshape the public narrative in America and deflect attention from the country’s human rights abuses. The investigation was led by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, housed within the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It was spawned by the success of the upstart LIV Golf tour, which the committee called a Saudi-funded “takeover” of the PGA Tour.
After nearly two years, the investigation concluded in April, finding that “foreign influence efforts by Saudi Arabia and similar malign actors are growing in scope, sophistication, and reach.”
Trump has yet to make a nomination for ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Tuesday’s Riyadh meetup lands six months before Suarez is slated to be out of City Hall due to term limits. Suarez has not publicly announced what his post-mayoral plans are.
Suarez was first elected to the Miami City Commission in 2009 and became mayor in 2017.
While Suarez is currently slated to leave office later this year, those plans could change. A new idea brewing in City Hall to move elections to even years could extend the terms of the city’s current elected officials by one year, canceling the upcoming November election and pushing it to 2026.
This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 11:29 AM.
.jpg)