US President Donald Trump is getting the royal treatment from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
When Trump walked off his plane, the Saudi crown prince himself, Mohammed bin Salman, was there to greet him and shake his hand.
Trump’s three-nation tour of the Middle East is his first international trip since returning to office in January.
He’ll be in the region most of this week, with visits also planned to the Gulf states of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
On his trip, he is expected to focus on economic and trade agreements, but the president’s hosts are likely to raise concerns about some regional security issues, as well.
In Riyadh, Trump said the US-Saudi partnership has never been stronger, and he hailed a “golden age” for the Middle East.
“The US-Saudi relationship has been a bedrock of security and prosperity,” Trump said.
Trump’s first order of business was to sign off on a strategic partnership agreement with the Saudi crown prince.
New deals were announced on Tuesday between US and Saudi customs authorities, space agencies, judicial officials and energy departments.
The White House said the US will provide Saudi Arabia with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment” as part of a $142 billion defense agreement.
According to the Trump administration, the Saudis are committing $600 billion worth of investments in the United States.
In the past, American presidents would use trips like this to pursue a geostrategic vision for regional peace and security, according to Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics.
He said that Trump doesn’t have such a vision for the Middle East.
“For President Trump, the United States is a big department store. And the world deals with President Trump accordingly,” he said. “Basically, what the Gulf States will try to do is to try to create a kind of a bridge to Donald Trump by signing, or by promising, to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US Economy.”
Gerges reckoned that the president will still hear concerns from his hosts this week about a few regional security issues.
The first is Iran and its nuclear program.
When Trump visited Saudi Arabia back in 2017, US allies in the Middle East wanted to take a hard line against Iran.
It had just signed a nuclear deal under the leadership of President Barack Obama.
But now, Gerges said, Trump will be hearing a very different message about Iran.
“The Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, they have all made it very clear they do not really want a military confrontation in the Gulf.”
And that’s why those Arab governments want the Trump administration to keep working toward a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran.
Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution said that the Gulf States still see Iran as a regional threat.
“But they also have a higher imperative, which is to preserve their economic transition, to preserve political stability and to avoid the region becoming inflamed in another brutal and costly conflict that will likely end in ways that are very negative for their own control of their countries,” she said.
Another security issue that Trump and his team are likely to get an earful about this week is the Israeli war in Gaza.
It’s been going on for 19 months, and it remains hugely important for the Arab public.
“The Arab states have put a proposal on the table for reconstructing Gaza,” said Dana Stroul with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It did not go far enough in the eyes of Washington on how you would get Hamas out of its governance position, demilitarize Hamas, but it’s something to work with. And that’s what members of Trump’s inner circle have said, that there’s something to work with there. So, he’s certainly going to hear about these issues.”
In Riyadh on Tuesday, Trump said that he will help free more hostages from Gaza, and that the region’s people deserve a much better future.
Trump also said that he still hopes Saudi Arabia will one day join the Abraham Accords and normalize its relationship with Israel.
But it’s hard to see any possibility of that before the end of the war in Gaza, and without making progress toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
The reconstruction of Syria is one more security concern for US allies in the Middle East.
And Trump addressed that during his speech on Tuesday, saying, “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.”
Lifting sanctions would allow aid and investment into Syria and help the country start to recover from years of civil war.
Trump is also reportedly planning to meet with Syria’s interim president on Wednesday in Riyadh.
That would be a historic turnaround for someone who once fought with al-Qaeda backed insurgents against US forces in Iraq.
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