What are the key issues surrounding Trump’s Middle East trip?
US President Donald Trump will hold a summit with Gulf state leaders in Saudi Arabia this week, before travelling to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
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WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump is set to land in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (May 13), the first stop of a four-day trip to the Middle East where he will hold a summit with Gulf state leaders.
Trump’s first major foreign trip of his second presidential term highlights his administration’s growing focus on economic cooperation with Gulf nations, observers said.
“He’s very interested in pursuing commercial deals. He’s very interested in trade,” said former US ambassador to Tunisia Gordon Gray.
“The Middle East and particularly the Gulf countries he’s visiting, are very ripe for good deals with US businesses,” added Gray, who is now a Kuwait Professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Affairs at George Washington University.
The Middle East was also the location of Trump’s first major international trip during his first term from 2017 to 2021 – something analysts said speaks volumes about his presidential and personal priorities.
Aside from Saudi Arabia, Trump will travel to Qatar before ending his trip in the United Arab Emirates.
His family has been involved in new developments – including Trump golf courses – in all three nations, while he has sizeable portfolios there as well.
His son Eric Trump was recently in Qatar to announce the country’s first Trump-branded real estate project in a US$5.5 billion deal. Trump towers are also set to be built in Dubai in the UAE, the Saudi city Jeddah, and Saudi capital Riyadh.
Meanwhile, a recent offer by Qatar’s royal family to donate a luxury US$400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet, to be used as the new Air Force One, has raised eyebrows.
Trump on Monday dismissed ethical and security concerns surrounding the offer, saying it would be “stupid” not to accept it.
Jonathan Panikoff, director of think tank Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, said the move has set off “alarm bells” on Capitol Hill, even among Republicans.
“To be totally frank, it’s the defence of the indefensible. This is just graft, pure and simple,” he told CNA’s Asia First.
“The Qataris have done a lot in the region to promote peace, to promote efforts to negotiate, but they also have a history of trying to bribe officials in Israel, FIFA officials for the World Cup, European Parliament members.”
TRADE
Trump’s visit also comes at a time when the US and China are locked in a trade war.
The world’s two largest economies on Monday announced an agreement to drastically reduce tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days.
While the Trump administration is trying to get the Gulf nations to choose trade with America over China, some analysts warned that a one-or-the-other choice may not be in these countries’ best interests.
“As they look at that strategic choice, I think they are faced with a world in which US foreign policy can shift rather dramatically,” said Jennifer Gavito, former acting principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.
Gavito, now a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, added: “Rather than banking on the Trump administration, there is a lot of thinking going on about how reliable the United States is as a long-term partner.”
Still, other observers said it remains important for them to strike deals with the US.
Panikoff said the focus for the three Gulf nations Trump is visiting will be on broader economic relationships with the US, investment, and technology.
Panikoff noted that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE all have their currencies pegged to the dollar, which means any impact on the US economy will lead to an “outsized impact” on their own economies.
“It's important to remember the current challenges the US has been facing related to tariffs in the US economy,” he added.
GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONS
Trump is visiting the Middle East amid turbulent geopolitical tensions in the region.
In his first term, one of his signature foreign policy achievements were the Abraham Accords in 2020 – the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has hinted that more countries could soon be added to that list, but observers said one in particular – Saudi Arabia – seems unlikely.
It had been close to achieving a normalisation deal with Israel just before the war in Gaza broke out on Oct 7, 2023. Since then, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has accused Israel of committing genocide in the Palestinian enclave.
Gray, the former US ambassador, said he thinks it would be “very difficult” for the Saudis to agree to normalising relations with Israel during Trump’s trip.
“I think the flaw of the Abraham Accords is that they were built on a faulty premise, which is that the world can ignore the Palestinian issue and everything will be fine in the Middle East,” he added.
“As we so sadly found out on Oct 7 and subsequently, that’s simply not the case.”
The Gulf states have been influential as mediators in conflicts besetting the region.
Qatar and the US have worked together on the conflict in Gaza, while Oman has helped mediate between the US and Iran, as well as facilitated the Houthis’ ceasefire in Yemen.
Iran is also likely to factor into discussions, as the US moves closer to a possible deal to limit the country’s nuclear capabilities.
Panikoff said the Middle East, however, has taken the view over the last few years that the US – no matter who the president is – will not provide the level of defence and security guarantees to ensure their own economic diversification.
Saudi Arabia and Iran signed a renormalisation deal in Beijing in 2023.
“They’ve had to go to plan B, and plan B has meant detente with Iran and moving on, looking for rapprochement,” noted Panikoff.
“So I think that framework, where it was about security and is now about economics – in part because of the Iranian issue – is very different than it was. It really creates a different environment than we saw eight years ago.”
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