President Trump salutes after answering journalists’ questions outside the White House on May 8.
Jim Watson / AFP
hide
tilting legend
Jim Watson / AFP
President Trump leaves on Monday for the first major foreign trip to his second term, focusing on trade agreements in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates while his administration has trouble ending the war in Gaza.
Trump is committed to bringing peace to the region while running for a second term, but it turns out to be elusive. During this trip, he will present a promise from Saudi Arabia to invest $ 600 billion in the United States over the next four years and commitments from the United Arab Emirates to spend 1.4 Billion of dollars over 10 years.
“The Saudis, the Emiratis and the Qataris will fall on themselves for whom can surpass themselves to welcome the president,” said Steven Cook, main member of the Middle East of the Foreign Relations Council. “And then they will surpass themselves on the number of transactions they can announce because the president is there.”
In many ways, the trip is a replay of the inaugural foreign journey of Trump’s first mandate. The Saudis welcomed Trump with a sumptuous ceremony and announcements of billions of dollars in investments.
In 2017, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi (from left to right), Saudi King Salman and President Trump attended a ceremonial launch of the World Center for the fight against extremist ideology.
AP / SAUDI news agency
hide
tilting legend
AP / SAUDI news agency
Cook said that Gulf leaders understand what Trump wants – and has an interest in giving it to him – because there are other things that they don’t want Trump to ask.
“It’s good for them because when he comes to them and said:” We want your help to do something on Gaza “, and they are not inclined to do so, they will be isolated from criticism that would probably come if they did nothing,” said Cook.
In 2017, Trump sought to consolidate relations in the region after having implemented a prohibition to travel on certain Muslim majority countries – and did business with autocratic leaders looking for global credibility.
President Trump joins the dancers with swords during a welcome ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 20, 2017.
Mandel Ngan / AFP
hide
tilting legend
Mandel Ngan / AFP
The White House said that this trip will highlight the strengthening of links in the region.
“President Trump will return to underline his continuous vision of a proud, prosperous and successful Middle East, where the United States and the Nations of the Middle East are in cooperative relations and where extremism is defeated in place of trade and cultural exchanges,” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday.
But disorders and uncertainty in the region have complicated messaging, said Karen Young, a political economist focused on the Gulf of the Middle East Institute.
“A large part of rhetoric is the same, but the world has changed,” she said.
Trump’s biggest political objectives are currently out of reach
Trump has major objectives in the region for its second term: final fights in Gaza, stop Iran’s advances to become a nuclear power and persuade Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel by joining what is called the Abraham agreements.
But Saudi Arabia – which has long called for an independent Palestinian State – is unlikely to be interested in these agreements at the moment because of the war in Gaza, said Dennis Ross, who worked on the Middle East issues for the George HW Bush and Clinton administrations.
“Mohammed bin Salman (crown prince of Saudi Arabia) is very likely to say that Sours the atmosphere, that it is not something in which he can get involved at this moment,” said Ross, who is now at the Washington Institute for the Politics of the Near East.
President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman meet in Riyadh on May 20, 2017.
Mandel Ngan / AFP
hide
tilting legend
Mandel Ngan / AFP
Any discussion on the agreements should occur behind closed doors, said Ross.
It also makes commercial offers larger for Trump.
“Right now, the president is not much successful to point,” said Ross.
What happened during Trump’s first trip to Riyadh
During Trump’s first trip to Riyadh, the Saudi capital in 2017, nearly $ 110 billion in arms transactions were announced, and the administration said other investments could increase this total to $ 350 billion.
Since then, the State Department said, the US government has “implemented” $ 30 billion in foreign military cases “with Saudi Arabia. In other words: Riyadh’s announcement was the easy part.
“There are a lot of steps in any process of selling weapons,” said John Parachini, principal researcher at La Défense at Rand Corp. The process involves complex negotiations, several federal agencies, congress, weapons manufacturers and customer countries.
But this complexity was not part of the way Trump sold it.
“This is the style of this particular president. He will send a strong signal that he supports American affairs, but these things are really complicated and can take years,” said Parachini.
