When American presidents visit the middle -east, they usually arrive with a strategic vision for the region, even if it seems a great deal.
Jimmy Carter pushed Egypt and Israel to a historic peace agreement. Bill Clinton tried and failed with Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. George W. Bush imagined that his war against terrorism would ultimately lead to democratization in the region. Barack Obama went to Cairo “To seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. “
President Trump will visit the Golf this week looking for one thing above all: business deals. Aircraft. Nuclear energy. Artificial Intelligence Investments. Arms. Everything that places a signature at the bottom of a page.
While planning the first major foreign trip of his second term, a four-day swing by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Trump told his advisers that he wanted to announce deals that would be worth more than $ 1 trillion.
As a brand exercise it makes perfect sense. Surrounded by resources-rich royals and American managers, Mr. Trump, who likes to brag about his deal skills, will scribble his Sharpie about terms of time sheets, and many of them. He will visit palaces, walk on red carpets and will be treated like a king in a region that is becoming increasingly important To the financial interests of the Trump family.
But as a strategic exercise, the goal of the journey remains foggy. During his 2017 trip to the region, Mr. Trump experienced waves Dozens of leaders of majority-Muslim collect countries to confront extremism and to denounce. It is unclear which goals of foreign policy, if present, will be claimed on this visit.
During the Biden administration, negotiations on the sale of Saudi Aarabia were bound by billions of dollars in civilian nuclear equipment -and the possibility of enriching their own uranium -bound to a diplomatic objective: the convincing of Riyadh to recognize Israel, meant by the Americans as an extension of the Daignaties, the lord of the Daignaties, the Lord’s Domaham evaluation evaluation evaluations of his first term.
Now the negotiations seem to be slowly improving as an independent business deal.
Mr. Trump’s assistants insist that he still wants to deal with a standardization agreement between Saudi Aarabia and Israel. But with the war in Gaza still furious, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Aarabia is not interested in the public embraced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. And the current interest of Mr Trump to bind himself to the Lord Netanyahu is not much greater than that of the crown prince. So a stop in Israel did not make it to his travel schedule.
There will be no meeting in Riyad between Mr Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin van Russia, as Mr. Trump had once hoped. And the Trump team has been Cagey about the status of his nuclear diplomacy with Iran, not those negotiations that happened behind closed doors in Oman does not want to be upset, a country that Mr Trump does not visit on this trip.
“Going to the middle is going to go to the middle, is more about economics, not about strategy,” said Dennis B. Ross, an old peace negotiator in the middle now at the Washington Institute for near East Policy. “He clearly loves these types of travel with announcements of major deals, because this is his preoccupation. His focus, his priority, is much more on the economic, financial side of things.”
Instead of a large strategy, a series of financial transactions will be that Mr Trump will promote as producing jobs for American employees.
The agenda easily fits in with Mr Trump’s growing business plans. His family has six awaiting a majority of Saudi ownership real estate company, a cryptocurrency deal with a affiliated company of the United Arab Emirates and a new golf and luxury Villa project, supported by the government of Qatar.
The Qataris goes large lengths In court Mr. Trump. The Trump government is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft as a donation of the Qatari-Koninklijke family who will be upgraded to serve as an Air Force, in possibly the largest foreign gift that the US government has been received, said various American officials with knowledge of the business.
The discussion plan evokes substantial ethical issues, especially in view of the fact that Mr Trump could use the $ 400 million plane after he had left his office and received it as a donation to his presidential library. (The Pers Secretary of the White House said on Sunday that every deal would meet the law, and Qatari officials said it was still revised.)
Saudi -Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar manage trillions of dollars around the world, and have become more and more diplomatic And financial forces to take into account. But their foreign policy has deviated from America in recent years. In addition to the United States, the three countries have forged close ties with China, Russia and Iran, which remains their indispensable defense funds and operates military bases in their areas.
For Prince Mohammed, the president’s decision to make the kingdom one of the destinations of his first major trip abroad – for the second time – Validatie lends to his conviction that Saudi -Arabia is an increasing global power, with gravity that powerful leaders cannot ignore.
While Mr Trump visits these authoritarian states, he can be sure that he will not be subject to the kind of protests and hostility he would expect if he would visit some of the American allies in the North Atlantic treaty organization, such as Canada or Germany, where he is deeply unpopular.
The royal families of the Golf know better than anyone else how to speak the language of Mr Trump.
He praised for years about his gilded reception in Saudi Arabia in 2017, during his first foreign trip as president. They projected an image with several treasures of the face of Mr. Trump on the facade of Riyad’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where Prince Mohammed later captured Opponents. American flags stood along the highways, the country singer Toby Keith performed for a complete house of Saudi fans and Mr. Trump joined a traditional sword dance. During a visit to a center to prevent extremism, the president put a hands on one glowing ball In addition to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi van Egypt.
Yet Mr. left Trump in 2021 the office and believed that the crown prince owed him. He had come to the defense of Prince Mohammed at a time when Western Elites shunned him after the murder of the Washington Post -Columnist and Saudi -Dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
While Prince Mohammed denied about the murder in 2018, The CIA assessed that he would probably have approved the mission By Saudi Assassins, and there was a two -fold protest in Washington.
But Mr Trump, after he stated that he would follow the evidence and take action against the murderers of Mr. Khashoggi, stood with Prince Mohammed and took the honor for saving him.
“I saved his ass,” Mr. Trump told the journalist Bob Woodward in early 2020. “I could allow the congress to leave him alone. I could let them stop.”
The crown prince has returned the favor.
No part of the world has been more important for the rising financial well-being of the Trump family than the Middle East, especially since 2021, in the aftermath of the attack of January 6 on the Capitol, after which Mr. Trump and his family members were treated as pariahs by a large part of the American business community.
It was in that climate that Jared Kushner, the son -in -law of Mr Trump and his former Senior White House Advisor, started his own investment fund. His greatest financier became Prince Mohammed. Six months after Mr. Kushner left the White House, the Crown Prince took over the concern from his investment advisers and ensured that the Saudi sovereine wealth fund invested $ 2 billion with Mr Kushner’s company, making the Saudis by far his biggest investor.
Mr. Trump had his own problems at the time. He was furious when the PGA of America voted, after the Capitol Riot, to rid his New Jersey golf course of the PGA championship. This was much more than a financial blow; It was personally painful for Mr. Trump. Golf is central to the Trump brand and there was no larger approval stamp than organizing the PGA championship event at Trump National in Bedminster, NJ
Coincidentally, in 2021, the same sovereign wealth fund started that had invested $ 2 billion with Mr Kushner – the Public Investment Fund – the separated Liv Golf. The Saudis spent millions of PA golfers, and the new circuit was an important threat to the PGA tour before the two parties signed a provisional partnership agreement in 2023.
The timing was perfect for Mr. Trump and he saw an opportunity to put his golf courses back on the world map. Liv Golf has held tournaments for four consecutive years on Mr Trump’s courses, increasing the international profile of Mr Trump’s golf resorts and income to his hotels and restaurants is increased.
Mr. Trump’s family has also signed deals with one Majority Saudi property real estate company to build in projects Jeddahin Dubai and in Muscat, OmanAmong other locations.
On Tuesday, when Mr. Trump is planned, the Saudi government is planning to organize an investment forum with the White House Crypto Czar David Sacks and other American managers, including the Chief Executives of IBM, BlackRock, Citigroup, Palantir and Qualcomm, a half -handedman company.
Prince Mohammed has promised to invest $ 600 billion in the United States for the next four years – a number that economists say it is very unlikely to come out if the Kingdom is struggling with a cash crunch. The Emiratis have promised $ 1.4 trillion in American investments for 10 years.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, has more and more challenge On his own path. The growing ties of the country with both American rivals such as China and growing economies such as India are in preparation for a world that can no longer be dominated by the United States one day.
But the golf leaders appreciate the transactional character of Mr Trump. The American president, she discovered, she does not give a lecture about human rights.
Eric Lipton And Maggie Haberman Reported report from Washington.
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