From caliphate to corridor: How Trump made the Gulf states great (again)
Donald Trump's presidency marked a turning point in U.S. engagement with the Islamic world. His first official trip—to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar—signaled a break from conventional diplomacy. This was no symbolic gesture. It reflected a deliberate strategy: to elevate the Islamic middle powers as pivotal players in a new U.S.-led global order.
The
Gulf
states—long seen as energy giants and financial partners—were recast in Trump's vision as ideological and geopolitical anchors. Their influence extends beyond oil: through media, religion, investment, and regional diplomacy, they shape narratives across the Muslim world. Trump's outreach reframed them not as clients of U.S. power but as co-architects of regional stability. By getting them to become stakeholders in U.S. prosperity by investment, renewed clients of U.S.'s military complex by purchase, and important stakeholders of U.S.'s flagship projects that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific—like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)—the Trump administration aimed to pull them away from Iran, China, and Russia. This wasn't just about containment—it was about co-opting ideological leadership within Sunni Islam by his visit, friendship, and agreements.
This shift became more urgent as state-backed Islamist extremism continued to evolve. The October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the April 22 murder of Hindu tourists in
India
exposed a wide spectrum of threats. Iran backs proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis. Pakistan, with tacit support from Turkey and China, leverages Sunni jihadist groups to pressure India. Other conflicts are ongoing and brewing in Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Iraq—where the only containment is possible through the consolidation of the three Islamic middle powers. All these conflicts have demonstrated the ability to bring global trade and prosperity to a halt.
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All three have renewed their alliance with the U.S., promised large investments, and with it an implicit commitment to contain their spheres of influence to benefit U.S. foreign policy, including a guarantee to Israel's security.
An important example of this was the informal meeting in Riyadh of Ahmed Al-Sharaa with the U.S. President on the intervention of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. Al-Sharaa, a former ISIS terrorist turned statesman, has now evolved from a radical Islamic terrorist to the poster boy of Islamic moderation. The meeting opens the possibility of bringing Syria into the Abraham Accords (possibly IMEC), recognizing Israel, and a return to Syria's centrality and leadership in Middle East politics. Meanwhile, the UAE's acquisition of port rights in Tartus—Russia's only naval outpost in the Mediterranean—suggests a recalibration of Levantine geopolitics, subtly shifting the region's center of gravity away from Moscow and toward Gulf-backed development.
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As China facilitated Syria's return to the Arab League, the U.S. quietly moved to reassert its influence. Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began shaping Syria's reintegration—economically and diplomatically—through backchannel efforts. While seeking peace with Russia in an attempt to de-couple Russia and China, Trump has also cornered the Islamic Republic. Already weakened by Israeli strikes, Iran finds itself in a dire economic, political, and social situation. If the regime does not negotiate an agreement with Trump, it empowers its opposition at home; a successful agreement with the U.S. weakens it with its proxies. An effective zugzwang.
Turkey is a
NATO
ally which draws legitimacy from the
Muslim Brotherhood
and is desperately trying to be a middle power while challenging all definitions of democracy. Erdoğan has long challenged the Saudi and Emirati vision of a post-extremist Sunni world. Qatar, his closest ally, continues to act as financier and safe haven for Brotherhood-linked networks. Yet even as Erdoğan projects ambition, the broader trend is clear: the Gulf states have turned decisively toward technocratic governance, religious moderation, and global integration. Erdoğan's neo-Ottoman aspirations increasingly look constrained—more reactive than strategic. Trump's GCC visit may isolate Erdoğan further, making him more appreciative of U.S. support.
As we have crossed the centenary of the abolishment of the
Caliphate
in 1924 and we approach the centenary of the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, the Ikhwan al Muslimeen, the battle now is to counter the Ikhwan narrative, which spreads poison and destruction from Palestine to Kashmir and which has de-facto replaced the
Ottoman Caliphate
as the governing body of radicalized components of Sunni Islam. Only the three Gulf middle powers have the resources and legitimacy to do so. Trump understands this.
Amid the great-power chessboard of the U.S., China, and Russia, the role of Islamic middle powers has become central from Asia to Africa. Despite nearly 650 million Muslims—one third of the ummah—concentrated in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Xinjiang), the influence of the Gulf middle powers over Islamic identity, discourse, and funding carries weight and global significance, which is key to the security of the Middle East and Asia.
Trump's diplomacy recognized this leverage. By strengthening ties with the GCC and isolating Iran and Pakistan, the U.S. curbed China's economic and ideological reach in the region.
India must consider the longer-term ramifications of Trump's actions. While in the short term it may seem his actions support Pakistan or hyphenate it with India, in the longer term his actions have further isolated Pakistan from the Islamic middle powers, bringing it to an existentialist question of pivot or balkanize. Despite the bravado of the Generals in Rawalpindi, the biggest sign of insecurity after the ceasefire was China's provocation on the naming of Arunachal Pradesh. If the Sino-Pakistan alliance had won the round, China would not have so quickly demonstrated a sign of weakness.
As a result of Trump's diplomacy, India and Israel emerged as equal U.S. partners in a new strategic geometry—India anchoring the Indo-Pacific, Israel securing the Middle East, and the Gulf powers binding the architecture through ideological and financial capital. This is a trilateral partnership where Israel safeguards the region's western flank, India secures the east, and the Gulf states enable a shared prosperity model that undermines extremism while expanding influence—a true Indo-Mediterranean partnership.
By placing Islamic middle powers at the heart of his foreign policy, Trump did more than upend the old order—he began constructing a new one. One where ideology, energy, security, and diplomacy converge through partnerships rather than patronage. And one where the balance of power is not simply about militaries and markets—but about who gets to define the future of the Islamic world.
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