How Trump’s West Asia visit is a ‘curtain raiser’ for the regional dynamics – Firstpost

President Donald Trump has a special affection for West Asia, not only for its hydrocarbon riches, strategic location, security of Israel, and competition with China and Russia but also for the style statements coming through the inflow of petroleum dollars. He loves the welcome laced with glitz and glitterati, and there is not going to be any dearth of it. This happens to be his first visit to the region in his second term, which is being seen as highly significant with signalling for many others.

It will be recalled that even in his first term he had paid a visit to Saudi Arabia, which ironically led to the blockade of Qatar, causing regional fissures. But that is passé. Moreover, possibly his major foreign policy success was in West Asia, where he engineered the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, which have survived despite the disastrous and dividing Israel-Hamas war entailing atrocities on civilians on both sides.

Trump’s efforts to hold a ceasefire have been undermined by the intransigence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s displeasure with him is quite evident since many of his colleagues have commented often openly about their disappointment with the Israeli line of action, which has distanced Saudi Arabia and others from normalising ties while there are allegations of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) pounding the poor Gazans under the garb of fighting Hamas. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has emerged once again as the biggest supporter of the Palestine cause and the two-state solution. These have become Saudi Arabia’s precondition to normalise diplomatic relations with the Jewish state and were clearly communicated to Trump.

Trump’s visit to Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi surely falls in a unique transactional category, which is rebalancing the priorities of the rich Gulf states, focusing back on the US under Trump 2.0. At the investment summit, Saudi Arabia committed $100 billion of their petrodollars to the US economy while already signing deals for hi-tech transfer and purchase deals done with the high-powered top business delegation accompanying Trump.

Since defence and security and technological cooperation are two major components of their partnership, the United States agreed to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, according to a White House fact sheet that called it “the largest defence cooperation agreement” Washington has ever done.

As such, Riyadh is the largest importer of US weapons even as it is trying to encourage domestic manufacturing and diversification of its defence partnership. Of course both Saudis and UAE have been asking for F-35 advanced fighter jets, which has not been agreed to hitherto to avoid parity with strategic ally Israel. But as the New York Lotto’s dictum says, ‘Hey, you never know’.

In their diversification bid and developmental Vision 2030, MBS wants access to high-tech and smart manufacturing. He has been looking for a civil nuclear agreement as well, given the regional uncertainties with regard to Iran and Israel – the two near or real nuclear powers in the region. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have basked under the US security umbrella, for which they have paid through their noses by hosting bases and buying a flux of weapon systems for maintaining a certain regional power balance, despite regional rapprochement with Iran and under the Abraham Accords.

But the US’ distraction in the past towards the Indo-Pacific made the regional members realise the need for diversification of the security and geopolitical and economic risks and enhance strategic partnerships with their major markets. This is true, especially with China and India in the context of their ‘Act East Policy’, which is borne out by their increasing interest in not only bilateral strategic engagements but also in non-Western institutions like BRICS and SCO, where the primacy of China and Russia is evident.

These states have also followed a policy of strategic autonomy and acted as mediators and meeting grounds for the warring parties in the ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, the US and Russia, and Israel and Hamas. Several of them, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, were quite proactive in the efforts for de-escalation in the recent limited war between India and Pakistan.

Like last time , MBS has arranged a US-Gulf Summit with the GCC leaders even though Trump is visiting Qatar and the UAE separately. During the GCC summit a regional Gulf security architecture is to be framed and contours worked out even as Trump remains hopeful of the nuclear deal with Iran. This further underscores and aims to strengthen alliances in the turbulent Middle East and align strategic interests and national priorities between Washington and its Gulf partners. Qatar , a non-NATO ally, hosts the biggest US base and has emerged as one of the ‘go-to’ countries, be it dealing with the Taliban or mediating in the Israel-Hamas war.

With its per capita highest income, the small emirate has not only bought 100 Boeings for Qatar Airways but is also gifting one state-of-the-art aircraft to Trump to be used as Air Force One. It is also interested in $2 billion MQ-9 Reaper drone deals. Likewise, the UAE, an old partner which has been in the lead for the Abraham Accords, has promised to invest nearly $1.4 trillion in the next decade. The real flow of petrodollars may be a long way off, but Trump, being a businessman, used the opportunity to put his logic of US opportunity and economics at the forefront. For this and high-tech collaboration, it might be necessary to get over the objections by the US Congress and strong Jewish lobbies as well as the diluting and recalibrating of the AI diffusion rule and its diktat.

Although his call to MBS to be part of the Abraham Accords may not fructify, since Trump announced the removal of sanctions on Syria on the advice of the Saudis and may meet Al Sharaa, giving him legitimacy irrespective of his past credentials (Sharaa still happens to be US ‘specially designated’ Global Terrorist), it is possible that Syria could be the next Abraham Accords partner. His meetings with presidents of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine may be seen as the real curtain raisers and a live issue for the Israeli right-wing establishment.

Trump remains transactional, he is following his Make America Great Again (MAGA) and America First approach in a practical way, however unrealistic it may seem. No doubt he sees the world and the decrepit global order differently; hence, he claimed, “Far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins … It is God’s job to sit in judgement — my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity, and peace.” In any case, on this visit he has a lot to boast and claim about.

The author is the former Indian Ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta and is currently a Distinguished Fellow with Vivekananda International Foundation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.