Trump's Gulf dealmaking tour - World - Al-Ahram Weekly

Al-Ahram Weekly

21-05-2025

When US President Donald Trump kicked off his Gulf tour in Saudi Arabia last week, he promised that his trip to the Kingdom and two other wealthy Gulf states would herald an optimistic future for the Middle East.
On his arrival in the Gulf not only did Trump hail the 'gleaming marvels' of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, but he also showered their leaders with praise, describing them as 'incredible' and 'outstanding' men of 'vision.'
In return, Trump not only received a lavish welcome in each of the wealthy countries, but also and more importantly he received pledges of business investment deals that will give him a big boost in his hunt for $2 trillion and a tremendous win to tout back home.
Yet, on each stop of his 'historic' tour serious questions were also raised as to how much Trump's charm offensive in the Gulf will contribute to establishing stability in the Middle East, which is reeling under multiple conflicts.
In a world of bloody confrontations, every Middle East watcher has long learned that what really matters is geopolitics, not dealmaking, not attentive hosts, and certainly not rhetoric.
During his profit-making Gulf tour Trump may have succeeded in reimagining alliances on the world stage and shed his 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) isolationism at home, but whether what he has come away with is a geopolitical game-changer remains in doubt.
The trip has yielded, Trump claims, more than $2 trillion in pledges, including Saudi Arabia's commitment to investing $600 billion in the US, Qatar's agreement to buy up to 210 US-made Boeing planes at a cost of $96 billion, and a partnership with the UAE that will bring in billions worth of deals with the US.
These deals could be good for business and economic investments in the United States, but many questions about how the Gulf countries will benefit remain unanswered.
A quick look at the Gulf countries' sovereign wealth funds shows that their investments in the US have largely served personal and sometimes financially dubious enterprises like Affinity Partners owned by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.
Moreover, even if there are geopolitical objectives behind the generous gifts that the Gulf countries have made to Trump, a number of recent trends may begin to challenge conventional Gulf investment attitudes, including lower energy prices and budgets strapped by colossal domestic spending that could impact these countries' costly megaprojects.
While American investors including Trump's family, which is already expanding its footprint in the Gulf, will reap massive rewards from the trip, it remains uncertain what the Gulf countries will get out of it.
Expectations about the main goals on the Gulf countries' wish list, including security and artificial intelligence technology agreements with the United States, have thus far remained low.
Despite the win for Trump's personal business interests and his fascination with his hosts, his administration has not showed any commitment yet to help Saudi Arabia build a nuclear industry or to assist the UAE's ambition to acquire advanced semiconductor chips.
Saudi Arabia is eager to fulfil a long-standing desire to enrich its own uranium as part of an ambitious nuclear programme, and the UAE hopes to join the world's AI giants.
On the political side, the trip glossed over numerous regional conflicts and crises that have been rocking the Middle East, leading to widespread instability and violence.
Trump met with Syrian Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa during the trip and decided to lift the US' punishing sanctions on his country. Trump, who has said that he has 'no interest in Syria,' claimed that his encounter with the former jihadist once imprisoned by the US Army in Iraq was at Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman's request.
The meeting is important because it marks a détente between the US and Syria and also a major diplomatic win for Saudi Arabia. It helps to shield the new regime in Syria, which Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf powerhouses believe could curb Shia Iran's influence in the region.
Yet, it was the on-going genocidal war in Gaza that was most pushed to the sidelines of Trump's Gulf diplomacy in a show of disdain for the Strip's population who are facing starvation and suffering from a further wave of Israeli airstrikes.
After Hamas released Edan Alexander, the last known living American hostage held in Gaza, as a goodwill gesture, there had been widespread hope that Trump's visit to the Gulf could lead to a fresh pause in the hostilities or a renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This has not materialised, and Trump has swept aside efforts to end the war in Gaza, allowing Israel to continue its 19-month campaign in the enclave that has so far killed more than 53,000 people.
As Trump was wrapping up his visit to the Gulf states, Israel intensified its brutal incursions and bombardments of Gaza, killing hundreds of people and forcing the displacement of tens of thousands of others.
This week, Israeli forces began extensive attacks in the Strip as part of the beginning of what the army called 'Operation Gideon's Chariots.' Israel said the operation was intended to achieve the goals of the war, including the release of the hostages and the overthrow of the Hamas government.
Israeli media said the offensive, which involved huge numbers of ground troops, aims at expanding its campaign in Gaza, further advancing in the Strip, expelling more people, and seizing more territory.
The UK Sunday Times newspaper published a map showing an Israeli Army plan to force civilians in Gaza into three tightly controlled strips of land separated by four occupied zones.
Israel's operation came amid warnings of an imminent risk of famine in Gaza, with UN humanitarian agencies saying that around half a million Palestinians face starvation as the months-long aid blockade by Israel grinds on.
Yet, as Gaza faced a critical famine, and Israel continued its siege of the Strip, Trump only paid lip service to the situation during his tour of the Gulf.
He reiterated his desire to take over Gaza, saying in Qatar that the US would 'make it a freedom zone' and arguing there was nothing left to save in the Palestinian territory.
Just as he left the Gulf, the US media outlet NBC News disclosed that the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate up to one million Palestinians from the Strip to Libya.
The plan is under serious enough consideration for the administration to have discussed it with the Libyan leadership, NBC said, offering the North African country the release of billions of dollars of funds that the US froze more than a decade ago as an incentive.
Iran remains another challenge to Trump's muddled Middle East policy, which he boasts is a manifestation of his 'peace through strength' pledge. During every stop on his trip, Trump threatened Iran with strikes if a deal is not reached in the ongoing talks about its nuclear programme.
While such rambling remarks could be part of the salesmen's tricks Trump has enjoyed playing during his lucrative tour, they nevertheless remain incoherent and self-contradictory from the geopolitical viewpoint.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to react to Trump's threats, saying that 'the US should leave the region, and it will leave.'
The exchange and the administration's insistence that Tehran cannot maintain ability to enrich uranium showed that Trump is not closer to a genuine deal on Iran that will bring peace, and instead is further complicating tensions in a Middle East already spooked by other conflicts.
On the wider world stage, the Trump-friendly US media and think tanks claimed that the trip has sent the strong message that the Gulf is no longer a 'playground' for China and Russia.
But in a region marked by shifting allegiances and strategic uncertainty, this seems more rhetorical proclamation than reality. Both China and Russia will remain consequential economic, political, and security actors in the Middle East.
The slew of multibillion-dollar deals that Trump has made in the Gulf has shed light on one of the region's acute problems, its socio-economic inequality and the impact of this on political stability.
According to various reports, the Middle East is one of the most unequal regions in the world, with half of its population earning nine per cent of the national income while the richest 10 per cent earns almost 57 per cent, which is concentrated in the wealthy Gulf nations.
The trillions of dollars that were pledged to Trump on his recent tour and that stand to enrich him and America's CEOs while bombings and famine flare in Gaza have highlighted this widening disparity in the region.
When William Shakespeare's play 'Much Ado About Nothing' appeared in Arabic some years ago, the title of the play, meant to say that 'assumptions can and often do lead to tragedy,' was literary translated as 'Grinding Without Flour.'
Like in the famous comedy, the metaphor of an empty grain mill grinding on regardless during Trump's whirlwind tour was obvious enough, though it is a lesson not learned by the region's leaderships.
As the famous Saudi commentator Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid wrote in a column in the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in November 2018, 'perhaps it was us who Shakespeare has in mind in his play 'Much Ado About Nothing.''
* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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