US President Donald Trump arrived in the Middle East last week at a moment of extreme regional tension. The war in Gaza is continuing, causing the humanitarian situation of more than two million Palestinians to collapse. This has also disrupted all the reconstruction efforts in Gaza, as put forward by Egypt and adopted by the Arab states in a comprehensive plan that has yet to begin its implementation.
While the US Administration ended its military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen after the latter pledged to cease its attacks on commercial and military vessels passing through the Red Sea, thereby achieving a positive shift regarding the security of this vital waterway, the US-Iranian negotiations have yet to produce clear agreements on Iran’s nuclear programme, its foreign policy in the Middle East, or the easing of the sanctions imposed on it.
The second Trump Administration’s orientations regarding other Middle Eastern crises are also not yet clear. These include the ongoing military conflicts in Syria, where the United States lifted the sanctions against the country following Trump’s Riyadh declaration despite the limited commitment of the new Damascus rulers to democratic procedures and the inclusion of all the components of the Syrian people in the new Syrian government.
They also include the ongoing tensions in Libya and the civil war that is raging in Sudan. It is not yet clear where the Trump administration stands regarding the prospects for rebuilding security and peace in the region with American guarantees, and whether it intends to leverage Washington’s influence to end the wars in the region and achieve peaceful settlements that will lead to an independent Palestinian state, guarantee Israel’s security, achieve the desired stability in Lebanon and Syria, and end the tragedies in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.
As a result, I expect Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE to primarily result in trade, investment, and security deals between the United States and the Gulf states. These deals will be concluded bilaterally by Washington with Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi. The Gulf states welcome increased trade with the United States and are willing to invest in such deals, whether in exchange for arms, security guarantees, or new cooperation programmes in the fields of nuclear energy and artificial intelligence technologies.
In addition to trade, investment, and security deals with the Gulf countries, Trump may eventually also use his visit to the Gulf, which, in addition to his tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, also included a US-Gulf Summit meeting attended by Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain, to announce some important diplomatic initiatives for the Middle East.
These may concern the war in Gaza, for which US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff proposed a ceasefire by Israel in exchange for Hamas releasing half the hostages before Trump’s visit; the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, to alleviate which the Trump Administration wants to allow in humanitarian aid; the position on Syria, on which the US president has announced the lifting of sanctions; or the negotiations with Iran, which have yet to yield specific results.
In recent weeks, the Trump Administration has made only limited attempts to restore a ceasefire in Gaza and has issued few statements about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Strip. Trump’s visit to the Gulf may eventually result in new statements regarding the need to end the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and achieve a ceasefire, a move that the Gulf governments would support.
However, the seriousness of an American action will certainly be linked to an organised effort, which has yet to take place, to achieve a ceasefire and accept the start of the implementation of the Arab Reconstruction Plan for Gaza. This is the only comprehensive plan agreed upon by the Palestinians, Arabs, and Europeans that is capable of bringing about real change on the ground in the Gaza Strip.
The diplomatic initiatives that Trump has announced thus far will not quickly change the bitter reality in the Middle East.
As for the issue of normalisation between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the extension of the so-called “Abraham Accords” to Syria and Israel, the official Saudi discourse is consistent in its conditional link between the establishment of a Palestinian state or agreement on a serious path to establishing a Palestinian state and normalisation with Israel. Therefore, it was not surprising that Trump and the Saudi leadership left the matter without any explicit indications and relied on only vague phrases.
As for the conditions for normalisation with Israel that Trump demanded that Syrian Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa adhere to during his Gulf tour, these were not welcomed by Israel, which does not trust Syria’s new rulers and is continuing its attacks on Syrian territory in the south, effectively threatening Syria’s territorial integrity.
Qatar, for its part, has always sought to build strong diplomatic, security, and trade relations with the United States, viewing these as an important component of its role in the Middle East. Historically, it has feared marginalisation by powerful neighbours such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The boycott imposed on Doha by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi some years ago, along with Manama and Cairo, presented a difficult challenge for the Qatari government, a challenge it overcame thanks to its good bilateral relationship with the United States.
In this context, one can understand Qatar’s desire to build friendly relations with Trump and his administration and maintain a special relationship with the United States, whose largest military base in the Middle East remains at Al-Udeid in Qatar. Qatar will always guard against the risk of being marginalised by its neighbours and will always view its special relationship with Washington as an important guarantee of its role as a Middle Eastern power, just as it views its active diplomacy as an additional guarantee of its regional role. It has been working with Egypt to mediate between Israel and Hamas, for example, and has mediated in the recent past between the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan and in other Middle Eastern conflicts in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.
The same thing applies to the UAE, which views its special relationship with the United States as a vital pillar of the many roles it plays across the conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa.
As for Israel, it is too early to talk about marginalising Tel Aviv in US Middle East policy, given that Trump was only visiting the Gulf and did not stop in Israel at the beginning or end of his trip. The US interest in Israel and its commitment to its security are beyond doubt. The only thing that matters is that the US Administration does not want the Gaza war to continue indefinitely and that it is frustrated by Netanyahu’s refusal to return to the ceasefire. However, this does not mean a decline in US relations with Israel or that the Trump Administration is moving towards applying real pressure on Tel Aviv.
Trump’s visit to the Gulf had commercial, investment, security, and technological implications for this rich part of the Middle East. As for the rest of the region, including the Palestinian issue and Israel’s security, everyone is still waiting to know exactly where the Trump Administration will stand and who will shape its Middle East policy.
The writer is a political scientist and former MP. He is currently director of the Middle East Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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