Trump in The Gulf: Abraham Accords to 'Great Deals'
Trump's long quest, coinciding with family business interests, to remake the Middle East
By: Salman Rafi Sheikh
Between 2016 and 2025, US President Donald Trump’s ambitions to reshape the Middle East have swung dramatically from orchestrating high-profile diplomatic deals to overseeing policies that contributed to violent conflicts. His evolving approach has delivered moments of fanfare, most notably the 2020 Abraham Accords.
Now, in a striking reversal demonstrated by his mid-May trip to three Gulf states, the president appears to be sidelining Israel in favor of empowering the Gulf states in a move that, for the cynical, seems to parallel Trump family investments. This shift raises a central question: is the US building a new foundation for regional stability, or laying the groundwork for an even more dangerous and unpredictable future?
Trump’s first-term Middle East policy was centered on elevating Israel’s regional status, including allowing the move of the nation’s capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Abraham Accords, signed with the UAE and other Arab nations, were hailed as historic, but they came with a fatal flaw: they bypassed the decades-old, unresolved Palestinian question. The accords sought peace between states while ignoring the conflict at the heart of the region. That oversight, it can be argued, helped create the combustible conditions that exploded when Hamas launched its attack on Israel.
What followed has been a full-scale Israeli assault on Gaza backed by the US, one that has pushed the crisis to a genocide and continues to do so. There is no indication that this war is coming to an end. Yet, we have the US President focused more on launching new policies than undoing his previous mistakes although he seems to be growing more impatient with Israeli intransigence in Gaza and the West Bank.
In his second term, Trump seems to be steering the United States in a dramatically different direction although the president is hardly giving up on aid for Israel’s Gaza and West Bank missions, bypassing Congress to send Israel billions of dollars of weaponry including a March 1 declaration by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to use emergency authorities to expedite approximately US$4 billion in arms to Israel. This marked the second time that the Trump administration had done so, following a fast-tracked February sale worth more than US$7 billion for munitions and related equipment.
Rather than centering on Israel, his administration is pivoting toward a bloc of powerful Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar – as the new pillars of American influence, while ignoring Egypt, the biggest state in the region. The shift is not just rhetorical. It is backed by extraordinary material commitments. On his first official trip abroad in his new term, Trump didn’t visit Israel, landing instead in the Gulf states, where his administration announced more than US$2 trillion in agreements including a US$600 billion investment pledge from Saudi Arabia, a US$1.2 trillion economic exchange with Qatar and US$243.5 billion in commercial and defense deals with the UAE. A separate US$142 billion defense deal with Riyadh is among the largest military agreements in US history.
This recalibration is clearest in US policy toward Syria. The Trump administration’s willingness to lift sanctions and engage with Ahmad al-Sharaa, dismissed by Israeli officials as “an al Qaeda terrorist in a suit,” represents a dramatic break from past policy. Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh, rather than in Washington or Damascus, underscores where the administration sees the region’s new center of gravity: firmly in the Arab Gulf. Likewise, the decision to no longer directly target the Houthis in Yemen signals a notable shift. Taken together, these moves point to a broader redefinition of America’s role in the Middle East: from backing a singular regional hegemon to facilitating a more multipolar order anchored by Gulf cooperation and economic integration.
But if this is an effort to recalibrate US influence and reduce conflict, the fallout could be just as dangerous, especially given perceptions of the Trump family business dealings, which involve a lot more than the well-publicized US$400 million Qatari B747 “gifted” to the president. The family has a fast-growing business that runs deep and offers the potential of enormous profits. His sons Eric and Donald Jr have trolled the Middle East assiduously, announcing plans for an 80-story Trump Tower in Dubai, peddling the Trump family crypto company World Liberty Financial, a luxury golf resort in Qatar and leasing its brand to two new real estate projects in Riyadh. In 2022, long before Trump returned to the White House, his son-in-law Jared Kushner secured a US$2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince for Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners.
The perceptions of Arab business affiliations aside, which would hardly sit well in Jerusalem, sidelining Israel could provoke unintended consequences with a country accustomed to being the centerpiece of US Middle East policy, reacting with alarm and aggression. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already under domestic and international pressure, is signaling as much. In mid-May, he told his cabinet: “We receive close to US$4 billion for weapons... I think we'll reach a point where we wean ourselves off it, just as we weaned ourselves off economic aid.”
That statement reveals more than frustration. It suggests a possible strategic break between the US and Israel. As Trump draws closer to the Gulf, Israel could double down on unilateral actions in Gaza, Lebanon, or even Iran. The risk of regional escalation remains high, particularly if Jerusalem feels abandoned or boxed in by Washington’s new Gulf-first diplomacy.
At the same time, Trump’s new approach has created a window of opportunity, one that includes a possible thaw with Iran. In a remarkable but calculated departure from his first-term “maximum pressure” campaign, Trump is now signaling openness to a deal with Tehran. His rhetoric during his recent speech in Riyadh was strikingly conciliatory: “I’m here today not merely to condemn the past chaos of Iran’s leaders, but to offer them a new path... I have never believed in having permanent enemies.”
Iran, for its part, may treat this shift with skepticism. After all, it was Trump who unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Tehran knows American foreign policy can swing wildly between administrations. But if Iran ignores the current changes as merely temporary, it risks missing a strategic realignment already underway in the region. Its regional rivals—particularly Saudi Arabia—are undergoing rapid economic and military modernization, in direct partnership with the US.
The Trump administration seems to be recognizing that Middle Eastern stability may lie not in overwhelming military dominance or ideological crusades, but in economic interdependence and regional ownership. This is crucial given the rapidly changing nature of global economy with the rise of China. It is important for the Trump administration—and for future US administrations—to have emerging economic powerhouses on the US side.
That is why he enthusiastically redefined US relations with the region, taking a step from interventions to a position where the region is leading itself. Trump’s message in Riyadh emphasized this: the future of the region will be defined by the region itself. He denounced US interventionism and praised the Gulf states’ modernization agendas, reflecting a broader realignment of American priorities—from occupying force to investment partner.
Still, this is Trump. His foreign policy has never been particularly consistent, transactional rather than strategic, and his tone can change rapidly. But if his administration continues down this path—prioritizing Gulf partnerships, economic engagement, and even cautious diplomacy with Iran—it could mark the beginning of a new US approach to the Middle East.
Whether that approach brings peace or provokes a broader conflict will depend not just on Washington’s calculations, but on how Jerusalem, Tehran, and the Gulf capitals respond. The old American-led order is fading. What comes next may be less about American power and more about regional balance, which would tie into global geopolitics, i.e., US-China competition.
Trump, for better or worse, is no longer trying to make the Middle East in America’s image. He’s letting the region shape its own future. But in a part of the world where every pivot carries the potential for backlash, that hands-off posture might prove just as dangerous as the interventions that came before it.
Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies from SOAS, University of London. He is a longtime regular contributor to Asia Sentinel.