President Donald Trump’s Gulf tour has ushered in a new paradigm in US-Middle East relations, with the president decrying the western interventionist approach which has for decades dominated relations. Speaking in Riyadh on 13 May, President Trump lavished praise on his hosts; “the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits… Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves…You achieved a modern miracle, the Arabian way.”
Coupled with President Trump’s historic meeting with Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (MEES, 16 May), his speech highlights the new nature of US relations with the region; highly transactional, based on mutual economic benefits and absent any pressure on issues such as human rights or climate change. In many ways this harks back to an earlier era, except that the GCC heavyweights are now much more assertive players in their own right and economic flows are in both directions. (CONTINUED - 362 WORDS)