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In mid-May, US President Donald J. Trump will visit the Gulf. His destinations will be Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Saudi Arabia was supposed to be his first foreign trip since returning to the Oval Office this year, as it was in May 2017 during his first term, but the death of Pope Francis brought Trump to Italy and the Vatican several days ago.

The president’s high-stakes visit to these three Gulf states highlights Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi’s importance to US foreign policy as interlocutors, mediators, and regional powerhouses with deep pockets which invest a lot in the US economy.

Trump is determined to strengthen his relationships with these Gulf leaders amid a period of crises in the Middle East and economic problems at home in the US.

When Trump is in the Gulf from 13-16 May, he will probably be discussing many regional and international issues with Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati officials. In some areas, there will likely be much agreement, but certainly not all.

Whereas Trump only visited Saudi Arabia in his first Gulf trip in 2017, eight years later, he will visit the Kingdom as well as Qatar and the UAE. This needs to be understood within the context of Washington becoming increasingly reliant on these three Gulf states for furthering US foreign policy interests.

“US statecraft for a while, going back to the Obama years, has relied very heavily on delegating US foreign and security policy to partners in the Gulf. The three partners that have been most reliable [are] Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia for different reasons,” Dr Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at the Defence Studies Department of King's College London, told The New Arab.

“Solving the issue in Yemen, addressing the issue with Iran, stabilising Syria, and helping with mediation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - in all these conflicts in the region, and on all contentious issues, the Gulf states play a very important role as brokers and facilitators,” he explained.

“The role of these countries to unlock crises and conflicts, doing that on behalf of the US without the US having to invest money or troops, or even bandwidth, is very important for Trump,” he added.

“At a time when the US is lacking bandwidth and capacity to deal with crises all over the world, as the US wants to be more domestically focused, they’re delegating a lot of that statecraft to partners they can trust, and for the US, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are these partners who can bear the burden of statecraft, conflict resolution, and crisis management in the region.”

Trump is determined to strengthen his relationships with these Gulf leaders amid a period of crises in the Middle East and economic problems at home in the US. [Getty]

Crises in the Middle East

For Gulf Arab leaders, Trump’s visit represents a special opportunity to try to convince him and those in his administration to take a different approach to post-Assad Syria. While the White House remains suspicious of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s government, all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members have opted for engagement with Syria’s new authorities.

Saudi Arabia is taking the lead among the Gulf states in terms of outreach to Damascus since Bashar Al-Assad’s fall on 8 December 2024, highlighted by the Kingdom being the first foreign country that Sharaa visited since becoming Syria’s new head of state. His visits to Qatar and the UAE have been important too, from the standpoint of the new Damascus government’s quest to secure greater legitimacy at the regional level.

The Gulf states want to invest in Syria and help the war-ravaged country move ahead with its redevelopment and reconstruction. But Washington’s continued imposition of the Assad-era Caesar Act sanctions remains the greatest obstacle.

Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political scientist based in Dubai, addressed how Gulf states are looking at the situation in Syria and Washington’s foreign policy toward the new Damascus government. “As for Syria, nothing is more important than the end to the sanctions. They will [make] the best of [efforts] to help Syria through lifting the sanctions,” he told TNA.

Whether Trump’s upcoming visit to the Gulf and his discussions in the region will lead to any change in the US’s sanctions policy vis-à-vis Syria remains to be seen. Yet, in any event, the chances are good that Trump’s administration will continue to view the GCC states as important partners when it comes to navigating the situation in post-Assad Syria at a time in which the White House is intent on reducing the US military footprint in the country.

“On Syria, with Qatar and Saudi Arabia having pledged to settle Syria’s debts with the World Bank, these states will likely wield leverage, and Trump will want to use that,” said Dr Courtney Freer, a fellow at Emory University, in a TNA interview.

The leadership in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE will also make the case to Trump that the US should use its leverage to pressure Israel into ending its rogue conduct in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, and not carrying out military operations against Iran. GCC states are terrified about the prospects for a war involving Iran - a scenario that could prove beyond devastating from the standpoint of their economic health and national security.

“It will be an opportunity for the Gulf Arabs to share their views on these files, and get the Trump administration onside,” said Dr Dina Esfandiary, the Middle East Geoeconomics Lead at Bloomberg Economics, when asked about how sensitive regional issues will factor into Trump’s upcoming visit to the Gulf.

“Israeli violations of the Lebanon ceasefire, its attacks on Syria, and its continued destruction of Gaza will be at the top of the agenda for most Gulf leaders. They will spend significant time pushing Trump to rein in Netanyahu and his military campaigns across the region because Israel’s wars are fuelling regional tensions and conflict,” explained Anna Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, in a TNA interview.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Gaza as a topic during Trump’s visit to the Gulf. The extent to which the war has added many new layers of instability to the Middle East deeply unsettles officials in GCC states, particularly in relation to Red Sea security and Yemen.

With Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who maintains a uniquely close relationship with Trump, accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, the Gulf leaders will be keen to use Trump’s visit to three GCC states to try to convince him to change his administration’s approach to the Gaza war, which has left more than 52,000 Palestinians dead, displaced roughly 420,000 others, and subjected nearly all in the enclave to acute risk of disease and starvation.

“The Gulf [states] will ask President Trump to do more to end the war in Gaza. They will urge him to use whatever leverage America has over Israel to facilitate more relief aid to Gaza. This is [a] top priority [for] the UAE,” said Dr Abdulla.

Israel's war on Gaza will be an important topic of discussion for Gulf states during Trump's visit. [Getty]

Russia-Ukraine war

One of Trump's main foreign policy objectives this year is to freeze the war in Ukraine. Thus far, such efforts to bring about this outcome have not been successful. Yet, while Trump is in Riyadh, he will likely use the occasion to express gratitude to the Saudi leadership for hosting talks on the Ukraine conflict between officials from Washington and Moscow earlier this year.

For the Kingdom, this position as a diplomatic bridge between the US and Russia has served to enhance Saudi Arabia’s image as a peacemaker with a balanced foreign policy, which serves to increase the extent to which countries worldwide, including the US, owe something to Riyadh.

When Trump is in Saudi Arabia next month, the Ukraine war and diplomacy with Russia will probably rank high on his agenda. “He is likely looking for any help he can get to reach the finish line on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deal,” Dr Freer told TNA.

China

It is safe to assume that US-China geopolitical competition and the ongoing trade war will factor into Trump’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, with the American president trying to put pressure on GCC members to align more closely with Washington while distancing themselves from Beijing.

“He may push Gulf states harder than usual to side with the US over China as this trade war heats up,” said Dr Freer.

Such dynamics will require GCC states to continue their careful balancing acts as they navigate shifts in the world’s geopolitical order. “Gulf leaders will want to discuss Trump's trade war and find ways to further insulate themselves from the economic and political fallout. These Gulf leaders will proceed with caution, especially [with] regards [to] growing US-China tensions,” noted Jacobs.

Nonetheless, as all GCC states have a “Look East” geo-economic orientation and relations with China that continue expanding, some experts doubt that Trump’s upcoming visit to the Gulf will have any significant impact on how these countries position themselves vis-à-vis rising US-China tensions.

“Trump is likely going to try to get the Gulf Arabs on board with pushing back against China. He may even ask them to choose between the US and China, but the Gulf Arabs can't afford to do that. The US is their main security guarantor, but China is their main economic partner—they need both. So, they're likely to play to both sides and offer 'wins' to each - and they might just get away with it,” explained Dr Esfandiary.

GCC members “won't feel comfortable shifting from their traditional strategy of balancing their relations and interests with both of these global powers,” Jacobs told TNA.

It is key for Trump to return from the Gulf next month with major achievements, or at least such optics, in order to send a loud and clear message to American voters that his ‘America First’ agenda is succeeding. In light of the fallout from the tariffs, Trump will want to regain support from those who voted for him last year but are troubled by his trade policies. A recent CNN poll found that 55 percent of Americans see Trump’s tariffs as “bad policy” and 59 percent expect them to negatively impact their own personal finances.

First and foremost, Trump will seek massive investments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE in the US economy.

“Let’s be honest, if it was really just about statecraft, he would also go to Oman. The fact that he’s not going there also probably has something to do with the fact that Oman is not going to pledge hundreds of billions in investment in the United States,” Dr Krieg told TNA.

“So, there is this transactional element to this trip as well, where he needs to use this trip for his domestic audience and rallying people around the flag at home - around the Trump flag that is. For that, he needs to have pledges. He needs to have images that he can come home with to suggest that he secured hundreds of billions from these three countries,” he added.

Energy is another important issue. “I think one key objective relates to Trump hoping to decrease oil prices, particularly given the impact that tariffs have had on inflation; this could be a difficult conversation, however, due to Saudi interests to keep prices higher to drive profit,” commented Dr Freer.

The rising Gulf states

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE play extremely unique roles in the world, which helps explain why Trump had initially planned on visiting them before anywhere else overseas during the start of his second term. “These three Gulf countries are probably the only reliable and stable countries that can help the United States project strategic depth in this part of the world,” Dr Krieg told TNA.

Ultimately, it is difficult to exaggerate how influential Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi are in this world shaped by geopolitical instability and rapid change. The geostrategic value of having good relations with these GCC members is immense. Not only the US, but all global powers, seem to have arrived at this conclusion.

“The visit by Trump to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar will be a huge boost to the ‘Gulf Moment’ and the centrality of the Arab Gulf states as emerging regional powerhouses,” concluded Dr Abdulla.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics

This article was originally published on Newarab
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.