Amidst all the gold and glitter that Trump loves so much, what did you make of President Trump's Riyadh visit Jon?
With all of these lavish deals a dose of skepticism is needed. We've
seen Trump announce grandiose deals like this in the past that did not
materialise. I'm thinking back to the $100 million dollar arms deal with
Riyadh announced during his first term. So until we see this money
materialise, I'd say we can't speak of concrete deals, per se.
But on the trip overall, I think it shows a few things. First, a
continued shift of the region's centre of gravity towards the Gulf. The
Gulf dictatorships have really asserted themselves to the forefront of
the Arab world. This is buoyed, of course, by petrodollars, as the rest
of the region faces economic malaise. Something else notable is that
this trip did not include Israel, as his trip to the region did during
his first term. Lastly, his comments in his speech in Riyadh taking aim
at past US interventions in the region, attempts at nation building and
so on, were quite significant.
Saudi Arabia was Trump's first visit during his first term, now his
first visit during his second term. I would say there's not only a
conflict of interest here, given his family's extensive financial ties
within the kingdom and the deal between the PIF and LIV Golf, there's a
lot of personal incentives for Trump to be doing this.
Now Annelle, Mr. Trump then proceeded on to Doha, where a $42
billion weapons deal was signed, also the announcement that the Qataris
would purchase 28 Boeing passenger jets, All of this is coming in the
wake of the gifting of a rather special passenger jet to the
presidential library. Is this an example of transactional diplomacy or
is it bribery?
It's fairly clear that it's bald-faced bribery. This is a gift
intended for Trump himself. So I would certainly characterise that as a
very clear example of bribery. That being said, Trump is an example of
making American policies just that much more explicit. It is not so
different from how previous presidents operated, it's just that they
liked to characterise it as somehow being in the interest of the rest of
the world or for the purpose of expanding democracy or human rights or
whatever. While this gift is certainly above and beyond what we've
typically seen presidents accept in the past, US foreign policy has been
quite transactional for quite a while in that wealthy countries like
Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the UAE purchase large amounts of US-made
weapons, these enrich US defence contractors and weapons manufacturers,
which in turn enrich members of Congress through essentially bribery,
but lobbying efforts.
Jon, he then heads on to Abu Dhabi and meets with the UAE boss
Mohammed bin Zayed. Again, massive deals are proclaimed, an artificial
intelligence campus covering 10 square miles of prime Abu Dhabi real
estate, a $1.4 trillion investment in US AI tech over 10 years, more
than $40 billion investment in the energy sector, eye watering figures.
But beyond the commercial deals was there any suggestion the US might
have expressed some concern about the UAE’s support for bad actors in
places like Libya, Somalia or Sudan?
On the commercial deals, particularly the 1.4 trillion the UAE said
it would invest in the US, I would again say a lot of caution is needed
here. The UAE GDP is roughly $514 billion per year. The UAE sovereign
wealth fund collectively holds an estimated 1.7 trillion in assets,
which is just slightly above the 1.4 trillion number. So this is really
money the UAE doesn't have. So again, just like the talk about the deals
in Saudi Arabia, until we see these things actually materialise I would
be a little skeptical.
Regarding concerns about the UAE support for malign actors in Libya,
Sudan and so on, I highly doubt these were raised. The US has really
turned a blind eye to Abu Dhabi's various activities in the region and
here in the United States for quite some time. This is a bipartisan
turning a blind eye. In Sudan in particular, the UAE has been
instrumental in fueling the war through support for the Rapid Support
Forces, the RSF, and this war has claimed more than 150,000 lives,
displaced more than 11 million. The US government, specifically Blinken
in January before the Biden administration left office, determined that
the RSF and RSF-aligned militias have committed genocide in Sudan. But
both the previous administration and the current administration view
this conflict as peripheral to other perceived interests in the region.
Many commentators have noted that Trump did not include Israel in
his tour and there's a suggestion that that was a snub to Netanyahu.
How do you see it?
There's been a flurry of reports about Trump bypassing Netanyahu.
Most notable of all these reports is an article published in Israel
Hayom, which is owned by Miriam Adelson, the hawkish pro-Israel mega
donor to both of Trump's presidential campaigns. The article claimed
that Trump was ‘disappointed’ with the Israeli premier. But any rift
between Trump and Netanyahu can only be judged on tangible US policy
change, not rhetoric.
Under the Biden administration, we saw reports constantly of strain
between the Israeli premier and the former president, but it really
never led to meaningful policy change. It's a little different with
Trump because we have seen some notable policy changes in Syria and in
Yemen for example. All of these developments are significant in their
own right, but when viewed within a broader context I would say they're
secondary really to the challenges of the Gaza war and Iran. This is
where the so-called rift will be decided.
Even if he does break with Netanyahu on the war in Gaza and nuclear
negotiations with Iran, I wouldn't confuse this rift between Netanyahu
and Trump with a rift between the United States and Israel itself. Trump
has shown no indication of challenging the structural foundations of
this relationship.
Annelle, there was that extraordinary moment when Donald Trump
met the new president of Syria, Ahmed Al Sharaa. What do you make of the
thought that Al Sharaa agreed to take a significant number of
Palestinians in Gaza in return for the dropping of sanctions?
It's not yet clear what exactly Trump got out of his agreement to
lift US sanctions on Syria. Although I haven't seen any clear evidence
that Syria is going to accept refugees from Gaza, I would not be at all
surprised if part of Trump's willingness to lift sanctions on Syria does
reflect an agreement by Al Sharaa to take in Palestinian refugees from
Gaza. That being said, there are already over 400,000 Palestinian
refugees in Syria and I know that Al Sharaa is already dealing with some
degree of pushback. Given that he rose to prominence as a jihadi he has
to maintain credibility with people who were willing to fight alongside
him because of his vision for Syria, which was an Islamist vision.
It remains to be seen how much Trump may be trying to push Al Sharaa
to agree to various things, maybe even to normalise with Israel, which
could really undermine his credibility and even his ability to control
Syria, which could plunge the country back into civil war. My hope is
that whoever is advising Trump on Syria has a clear sense of the
tensions and fragilities there.
We can say many things about the way Donald Trump handles foreign
affairs, but it has to be conceded he moves the needle in ways that no
other president in recent memory has done. In his first term it was the
Abraham Accords. Now we see him coming off a tour of the Gulf with
massive commercial deals. So Jon, a triumph for Trump?
It's a little too early to tell how Trump's Middle East policy is
going to shake out over four years. It's only been four months, though
it feels like four years. I would say that Trump will likely continue
the broad strokes of US Middle East policy, whether this be support for
autocrats, support for the US-Israel special relationship, even if he
does ‘break with Netanyahu’ and so on. His moves regarding Syria and
Yemen are definitely steps in the right direction. I've always been a
proponent of US foreign policy leading with diplomacy and economics as
opposed to more militarised interventions but we haven't seen yet
whether he can withstand pressure from hawks in Washington and Israel
regarding his efforts to seal a deal with Iran. This would certainly be a
triumph for America, keeping the US out of war with Tehran.
If he recognises - and this is a big if - if he recognises that US
support for the war in Gaza is of zero strategic benefit for the United
States this could lead to pressure from the administration that could
end the bloodshed. Donald Trump has leverage. Biden had it too. He just
decided not to use it. But to end the war in Gaza, it also requires
Trump to step back from this proposal to ethnically cleanse and have the
United States take over the Strip. For now it's still a wait and see.
It's an ongoing battle between those who want to see more skeptical US
foreign policy and those who would prefer continuation and a much more
hawkish approach. Just four months in it's a little too early to tell,
but I hope the skeptical camp prevails.
Annelle, what do you think?
I was struck by the remarks he made in Riyadh and Jon alluded to
them. In particular, it reminded me of Obama's 2009 Cairo speech which
was heralded at the time as a break with the Bush administration and the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was living in Egypt at the time and
subsequently I remember just this creeping disappointment, because
although Obama said he was going to adopt a new approach to the Middle
East in many ways much of what he did represented a continuation of the
Bush era.
Trump's remarks where he acknowledged the efforts of Arab societies
themselves, without this notion that these countries need the United
States to get involved and to help them, was a very welcome message.
Although I don't expect Trump to fundamentally rethink US foreign
policy, I do welcome his openness to a new view of America's role in the
world. Trump's model is to sell lots of weapons and accept lavish
gifts. It is not ideal. It's a baby step, but I do think that it may be a
step in the right direction.
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