Analysis: U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East Visit

TaiwanPlus News

U.S. President Donald Trump’s first diplomatic trip of his second term is to the Middle East, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. Jean-Loup Samaan, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore, told TaiwanPlus News that Trump prioritized trade talks over addressing tensions in Gaza and Yemen during the visit.

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00:00Donald Trump has said the U.S. will lift sanctions on Syria just before he met the new Syrian

00:05President Ahmed al-Shara.

00:07What's your reaction to President Trump's meeting with Shara?

00:10I mean, first, I must say I was a bit surprised because there wasn't any specific signal in

00:17the past month that either Washington in general or this administration was interested in lifting

00:25the sanctions.

00:26But again, I think it tells us about how Trump likes to take everyone by surprise and doesn't

00:35feel he has to follow a specific pattern that is dictated by the foreign policy establishment.

00:44I think there was a lot of persuasion from the Gulf side, in particular Saudi Arabia and

00:50Qatar, that made it clear for months that if they want, if any reconstruction of Syria

00:57will require Gulf funding, Gulf investments.

01:01Trump is now pushing for Iran to end its nuclear program.

01:05He pulled out of President Obama's Iran nuclear deal in his first term.

01:09What's Trump aiming for here?

01:11Things have changed, I'd say, both in the Gulf and in Washington.

01:16The Gulf, we saw over the last years, even before Trump came back to the White House, restore

01:22ties with Iran.

01:24So there has been more diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia, the UAE on one side and

01:29Iran on the other side.

01:31Now we see that Trump, especially with his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been very active pushing

01:40for a new deal.

01:42What's the significance of Trump's visit to the Middle East?

01:45The White House, before the trip started, emphasized a lot of things about arms sales, about trade

01:52deals, and this was the key element of the visits in Riyadh, in Doha.

02:00But in addition to that, we saw that there was also a diplomatic element with the decision

02:07of the Trump administration to lift sanctions against the Syrian regime and for Trump to meet

02:13with the President, Ahmed Al-Shara.

02:17I would say that we also can see that some topics have not been covered, and that is also telling.

02:25There wasn't much said about Gaza.

02:28There wasn't much said about the Houthis and Yemen.

02:32So we can see here clearly the priorities of Trump, who wanted to emphasize the trade aspects

02:40of its conditions.

02:55There were almost identical places that were proposed to the United States.

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