It’s a match tailor-made for the moment. US President Donald Trump is once again making the first major diplomatic mission of his presidency, as he did in his first term in 2017, by visiting the Gulf. Then it was Saudi Arabia, but this time also the UAE and Qatar. For all sides, the encounter presents a series of uninterrupted wins with no apparent downsides.
Mr Trump’s presidency is increasingly beleaguered. While he began his second term with a flurry of norm-shattering initiatives, he is now in retreat, or encountering significant pushback, on almost every front. Poll numbers aren’t providing much comfort either.
The huge tariffs he announced on April 2 have been slashed to ribbons, even against China. Harvard is leading a pushback by universities against attempted takeovers from the White House. His deportation of accused gang members to a notorious Salvadoran prison, and his efforts to punish pro-Palestinian student activists with deportation, are encountering stiff resistance by courts around the country. The Federal Reserve Bank is refusing to co-operate with him on interest rates. Even his mass dismissals of federal civil servants are being delayed, and possibly blocked, by judges, as his point man on the project, billionaire Elon Musk, prepares to leave the administration after just a few months on the job.
He is a man who needs some wins. By visiting the Gulf countries, he certainly came to the right place.
All three Gulf nations have the same fundamental objective: solidifying their relationship with the US. They, too, are revelling in significant gains in that crucial project. The agenda is primarily economic, and on the American side includes both national and personal registers. Mr Trump is seeking major trade deals and investments in the US, and he is definitely getting them.
He appears to have secured $300 billion in new trade initiatives with Saudi Arabia, to be doubled to $600 billion over the course of the next four years. The centrepiece is a $142 billion weapons package, the largest US weapons sale in history, featuring numerous state-of-the-art systems, including air and missile defence, and a large training programme for Saudi officers.
The UAE is likely to prove equally lucrative. The Emirates is focusing heavily on artificial intelligence as the wave of the future and the centrepiece of its developing national economy. Mr Trump is likely to approve the sale of more than a million advanced semiconductor chips from Nvidia, thereby easing export restrictions on the UAE to allow it to buy semiconductors and graphics processing units for AI infrastructure. This will greatly strengthen the country’s AI capacity and represent a huge investment in US computer technology. The total arising from new trade initiatives by the UAE is likely to rival that of Saudi Arabia.
For its part, Qatar has pledged to purchase at least 150 major commercial airliners from Boeing, including more than 100 wide-body jets, the largest-ever purchase of its kind.
All three countries are heavily boosting Mr Trump’s efforts at revitalising US manufacturing. Qatar may seek to purchase US F-15 fighters, and the UAE could potentially resume its project to purchase the even more sophisticated F-35 fighter jet system.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, is attempting to bolster the dollar as the world’s default reserve currency while simultaneously devaluing it against other national currencies. This can only be achieved by countries continuing to invest in US securities, treasury bonds and debt, on similar if not greater rates as in the past, but on less advantageous terms for return on investment. It remains to be seen whether the Gulf nations, along with North-East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, will be willing to do this as an investment in better relations with Washington but they seem the most likely prospects.
But there is also a strong personal economic agenda at stake. Mr Trump’s family company, now overseen by his sons, stands to gain vastly from new Trump Towers in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dubai, as well as a new golf course and resort in Qatar.
For its part, Qatar is donating a luxury Boeing 747 jet for Mr Trump’s use as a temporary presidential Air Force One plane, to be donated to his presidential library at the end of his term.
There has been some diplomacy related to the summit, particularly the lifting of US sanctions against Syria. This will free Gulf countries to invest, and sponsor reconstruction, in Syria, helping to give that country a chance to stabilise, rebuild and reunify after years of devastating civil war, and could deliver much-needed stability in this strategically vital country that may otherwise explode with unrest, violence and even terrorism.
Mr Trump and his supporters are on the frontline of insisting that US allies around the world, including in the Middle East, should take the lead in resolving regional issues. The lifting of sanctions from Syria is a major step in the right direction in allowing key Arab powers to begin this aspect of Washington’s long-sought “burden sharing” agenda.
But most of what Mr Trump is seeking in the Gulf is financial – whether national or personal. On both counts, he is succeeding admirably.
It’s a rare diplomatic initiative in which everyone is a winner – Mr Trump’s Gulf sojourn certainly appears to be one of them. And unless he can get a better grip on his policies back home, he is going to recall this visit with increasing fondness in the coming months.
