Attendees wait to hear MBS and President Trump speak during a Saudi-US investment forum on May 13.Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
At every stop on his just-ended tour, President Donald Trump’s words were music to the ears of his Saudi, Qatari and Emirati hosts.
He spelled out an unambiguous message: the US is forging a new partnership with nations in the energy-rich Gulf and the wider Middle East. It’s one focused on deals, business and economic modernization, and de-escalating the region’s conflicts. American discourse about human rights and democracy will no longer feature.
US President Donald Trump speaks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before posing for a family picture with Gulf leaders in Riyadh on May 14.Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
“This great transformation has not come from Western interventionists giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs,” Trump told a rapt audience in the Saudi capital on Tuesday. “No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation-builders,’ ‘neo-cons,’ or ‘liberal non-profits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities.”
Trump speaks during the Saudi-US investment forum on May 13.Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Trump was referring to the US military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001. Washington spent trillions of dollars in the following years trying to stabilize those nations and establish Western-like democracies, with nothing much to show for it.
During Trump’s trip, the White House announced hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of investments and trade orders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, ranging from artificial intelligence chips to Boeing jets and energy.
One of the most eye-catching moments was when Trump announced, out of the blue, that he would order the removal of sanctions on Syria. The next day, he met and shook hands with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new Syrian president who was once an Al-Qaeda militant fighting US troops in Iraq.
Trump said he did it in part because Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — two strongman leaders who have long enjoyed a close rapport with the US president — asked for it.
Trump shakes hands with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh.Source: Saudi Royal Palace/AP Photo
The move shocked Israel, traditionally the US’s closest Middle East ally, which says Sharaa and his government are Islamist extremists who can’t be trusted. Trump has taken the view of MBS, as the Saudi prince is known, and Erdogan, who argue that rebuilding Syria is essential to stabilizing the Middle East and will provide plenty of business and trade opportunities.
“This is a great victory for Gulf states,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London’s Chatham House. “Trump is fully endorsing their governance structures, their idea of an economically focused model that comes with constraints on political participation.”
Trump’s pronouncements from the marble covered palaces of the Arabian Peninsula were the antithesis of a famous speech delivered by former US President Barack Obama in June 2009 at Cairo University.
Barack Obama delivers his message to the Muslim world from Cairo University, in 2009.Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP//Getty Images
“I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice,” Obama said.
A year later, protests in Tunisia ignited the Arab Spring and later led to unrest in countries like Bahrain and Egypt, and wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Many regional leaders felt Obama was naive in supporting protests calling for the overthrow of autocratic leaders who were for the most part allied to America.
With the exception of Qatar, which backed the Arab Spring uprisings and saw them as an opportunity to empower its Islamist allies, Gulf states viewed it as a chaotic decade for the Middle East that benefited non-state actors like Islamic State and Iran-backed proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The rift was one of the main reasons for an economic boycott of Qatar from 2017 to 2021, during Trump’s first term, by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
There has since been a reconciliation in the Gulf and Trump emphasized the camaraderie between the leaders he visited this week. He even told Qatar’s emir he was similar to MBS, who orchestrated the boycott. You’re both “tall, handsome guys that happen to be very smart,” Trump told Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad.
In a speech on Wednesday, Trump accused his predecessor, Joe Biden, of having “wreaked havoc and bedlam” in the Middle East and “turning his back on Gulf allies” by wanting to extricate America from the region as part of a pivot to Asia.
“Those days are over,” he said. “Everybody at this table knows where my loyalties lie, always have. They will never waiver.”
Still, the subtext of Trump’s other pronouncements was that while America will continue to project military might, it was now up to the US’s Gulf friends to do much of the heavy-lifting to stabilize the region.
MBS reminded Trump that the region — experiencing conflicts in Gaza, Sudan and Yemen, and messy post-war transitions in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria — still needed America.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad accompanies Trump in Doha.Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
“We are aware of the enormity of the challenges,” MBS said. “We strive with you your excellency, Mr. President, and our brothers in the member states of the GCC to end the escalation in the region and the war in Gaza,” he said, referring to the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are members.
US involvement and leadership is essential when it comes to Iran as well as Gaza and the possibility of further normalization between Israel and more Arab states, according to Paul Salem, director of international engagement at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Trump’s administration is in the middle of talks with Tehran to curb its nuclear activities and is pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the release of hostages there.
These are “the two big ones that are region changing and which Trump has to work on,” Salem said from Riyadh, where he followed Trump’s visit.
The good news for Gulf countries is that Iran realizes a diplomatic agreement with the US can lead to investment from the likes of Saudi Arabia, boosting the Islamic Republic’s sanctioned and battered economy, according to Vakil at Chatham House.
For now, Gulf states could scarcely be happier with Trump’s policies, even if they realize he can do little on his own to resolve the most complicated regional problems such as the Israeli-Palestinian and Yemen conflicts.
“The Gulf states have taken the path of least resistance with Trump, prioritizing bilateral arms and business deals while setting aside difficult issues,” said Hasan Alhasan, a Bahrain-based senior fellow for Middle East policy with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
