Trump redesigns the Middle East
Four days in three countries, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have served as a showcase for the new paradigm of international relations established by Donald Trump. What's more, he did not set foot in Israel, his staunch ally, sending a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, parodying his old television programme, could be summed up in his favourite phrase: ‘You're fired’.
His latest statements on Gaza before embarking on his return trip to Washington revealed his disagreement with the actions of the Israeli prime minister: ‘We have a very serious situation in Gaza and we are monitoring what is happening there; we have to deal with that because many people are starving. Many bad things are happening there.’ The phrases are carefully chosen to make it clear that Trump does not agree with either the blockade of humanitarian aid to the Strip or the massive bombing of the Palestinian civilian population, justified by the Israeli coalition government as ‘finishing off the terrorists of Hamas once and for all.’
It is true that Trump, in addition to signing huge trade and investment agreements, has also asked Saudi Arabia and Qatar to follow the path of the US and Bahrain in signing the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel. According to Saudi sources, the Kingdom's strongman, Mohammed Bin Salman, responded by saying that this will only happen when there is also a Palestinian state. With this request, the Saudi leader put the icing on the cake of his proposal to the US president to ‘work together to end the suffering of the Palestinian people’.
Given the speed with which the current occupant of the White House has acted, it is predictable that he will want a viable and executable short-term plan on his desk as soon as possible to end the war in Gaza, which was triggered, let us not forget, by the massacre carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023. In short, Trump wants to begin the reconstruction of Gaza as soon as possible, with the business opportunities that this entails, because all limits of ‘death and destruction’ have already been exceeded.
Although Trump has not set foot in Israel on his first tour of the Middle East, he continues to take it into account in the Israeli government's greatest concern: the possibility that Iran will acquire nuclear bombs. Trump has allayed such fears by announcing the imminence of an agreement with Tehran, essentially the same as the one signed in 2015 by Barack Obama and then cancelled by Trump himself in his first term. And the key point is precisely that the fundamental point of such an agreement is that Iran could never acquire nuclear weapons. A refusal to accept such a clause by the Ayatollah regime would infuriate the White House, which has already warned them that ‘if they do not act quickly, something bad will happen’.
One of the most astonishing coups has been his meeting with the interim president of Syria, Ahmed al Sharaa, which was also attended, via videoconference, by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is precisely the main supporter of the man who, just six months ago, was on the list of the most wanted terrorists on the planet, with a reward of ten million dollars on his head. Trump recognised Al Sharaa, former leader of the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, as ‘a fighter with a very tough past’, before offering him the great booty of returning to Damascus with the sanctions imposed by the United States lifted. A trophy that gives an opportunity for greatness not only to Syria but also to Turkey, which has also been able to show off its influence.
And finally, the bag of contracts and investments with which Trump himself returns home would make most of those who have literally lambasted him both within his own country and among many members of the European Union green with envy. From energy and defence contracts worth $140 billion to Arab investments in the United States worth another $600 billion, to the purchase of 210 Boeing aircraft by Qatar, it seems that Trump's brutal and direct language is probably more suited to today's world than solemn and bombastic statements that deflate as soon as they are uttered.
I will leave for the conclusion of this analysis what was the beginning of Trump's tour and his historic speech in the Saudi Arabian capital. A radical shift that censures the policy of the ‘nation builders who caused so much destruction’, in an obvious reference to US interventionism in many parts of the world, but especially in the martyred Middle East. The president has never hidden his business mindset, which is as pragmatic as it is relentless. He said of himself that, as president, he does not want to be a starter of wars but a finisher of those that unfortunately shake the whole world. An innovative formula, even more so if it works.