US President Donald Trump will visit the Middle East, the first in his second term as president, from 13 to 16 May. While Saudi Arabia will be the key stop in Trump’s regional tour, given the volume of security and investment agreements that will be signed during the visit, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also listed on the itinerary of the president’s Middle East tour.
While it is not clear whether Israel will be included in the trip, according to a Washington-based Arab source, Trump appreciates the wish of the Saudis to avoid connecting a visit to Riyadh with one to Tel Aviv given Israel’s war on Gaza.
The source said that when Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan was in Washington earlier this month, he made it clear that Riyadh does not want to come across as expanding relations with the US and discussing possible normalisation with Israel in the midst of the Israeli war on Gaza that has killed and injured tens of thousands of civilian Palestinians.
According to diplomatic sources in Cairo and New York, the Saudis received a verbal promise during the Bin Farhan trip that the US would pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire ahead of and during Trump’s Gulf tour.
Other Arab and Muslim countries with close ties to the US, including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, have been pressing on Washington the need to find an end to the bloodshed in Gaza.
“We are not sure how far Trump will use his leverage with Netanyahu on Gaza because the story is now quite complicated given that Netanyahu and his team are also lobbying for a green-light from Washington for a strike against Iran,” said an informed Egyptian source. He added that while Trump has publicly said there has been progress in talks between the US and Iran conducted through third-party mediation, Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have been talking about Israel taking the lead, with US support, in striking Iranian nuclear facilities.
“It is not very clear where Trump stands on all of this, though it is certain both Gaza and Iran will be on his agenda during talks in the region, just as they were at the Oval Office during Netanyahu’s [second] visit two weeks ago,” the same source said.
On Tuesday, Trump announced that he had a very good conversation with Netanyahu and that they agreed on all issues.
According to several informed sources, Trump will arrive in the region facing conflicting scenarios for war and peace. The war scenario is Netanyahu’s, they say, and involves the total physical elimination of all political and military Hamas leaders who have survived the genocidal Israeli war and limited strikes that will eliminate Iran’s nuclear capacity.
The peace scenario is being proposed by Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, with the support of the Saudis and Omanis who want to see a prompt end to the war in Gaza with the re-institution of the Palestinian Authority there, marginalisation of Hamas’ influence, a nuclear deal between the West and Iran and a comprehensive and long-lasting security deal between the US and Arab Gulf states.
The US, sources say, seems to be engaging on both tracks. Earlier this year, the US approved a $7.4 billion package of arms sales to Israel, including buster bombs that the Biden administration had refused to deliver to Israel. The US has also deployed two warships in the region and conducted over 1,000 military strikes against the Houthis of Yemen. The US media has also reported repeatedly on Pentagon plans to beef up US military presence in the region. On Tuesday, the US announced that it is imposing new sanctions on individuals and bodies of association with Iran to undermine the Iranian ability to support Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Meanwhile, regional diplomatic sources say that Trump’s Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who presided over his country’s delegations during talks with Iran in Oman and Italy over two consecutive weeks, has a green light from Trump to give a new nuclear deal with Iran a full chance, though within a limited window of eight to 10 weeks.
According to press statements by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghachi, who headed Iran’s delegation to the talks, the next round is scheduled for next week. The top Iranian diplomat said that it will constitute a new “phase” in the talks, moving from the political to the technical.
In statements on 19 April, the spokesman for the US State Department said “we made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions.”
Regional sources say Witkoff has also been in touch with Egyptian and Qatari officials to monitor progress in the indirect talks that Egypt has been hosting to reinstate the ceasefire that Israel broke in March, two months after it went into effect.
According to one source, Witkoff offered US support for a possible ceasefire deal to go into effect before the start of Trump’s visit to the region. He said that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are coordinating very closely on the matter. It was on the table, he said, on Monday, during the talks Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held with Bin Farhan n Saudi Arabia.
The source said the result of the flurry of consultations and negotiations in Cairo and elsewhere in the region could be one of two things — a brief humanitarian ceasefire to contain the atrocious level of suffering and bloodshed civilians in Gaza are suffering while Trump is in the region, and the return of some of the over 20 surviving Israeli hostages, or a longer ceasefire that would allow for the return of all Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, the re-institution of the PA as the sole executive power in Gaza, and full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.
According to Egyptian sources close to the long talks that have been held with Israel to stop the war in Gaza, Trump will be happy with a peace scenario that ends the war, may or may not lead to Gaza becoming an investment haven, and a nuclear deal with Iran, though it is hard to see Netanyahu, who wants a continuous war to serve his own political agenda, agreeing to a ceasefire and refraining from striking Iran.
It is the war scenario, they add, that Netanyahu will press for. The sources agree that the stakes are high for Trump, Netanyahu and for regional leaders who are keeping a very close watch on any possible Israeli strike against Iran that could send oil prices to unexpected highs and see stock markets crash.
In a report published this month, the Washington-based Middle East Institute said: “A rapidly deteriorating security situation in the Middle East along with increased uncertainty in the broader geopolitical landscape do not seem like propitious conditions for a successful diplomatic visit by the US president,” but a lot can happen between 2 April and the May date of the expected Trump visit.
On Tuesday, Qatari Prime Minister Mohamed bin Abdel-Rahman Al-Thani arrived in Washington for talks that will cover Iran and Gaza, ahead of the Trump visit.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 24 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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