Trump Reshapes U.S. Mideast Policy. Can Deals Work Instead?
- President Donald Trump reshaped U.S. Middle East policy in 2025 by emphasizing investment deals during visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.
- This shift followed criticism of prior interventions under former President Bush, who believed invasions and coalitions would stabilize the region but failed to build lasting institutions.
- Trump secured over $2 trillion in commercial agreements, including a $600 billion Saudi investment, a $142 billion military equipment deal, and $100 billion from DataVolt and Silicon Valley ventures.
- Trump declared the U.S. Would end nation-building, praised a new generation of Middle Eastern leaders focusing on commerce not chaos, and announced dropping sanctions on Syria to offer it a chance at greatness.
- The policy suggests a move toward partnerships based on trade and mutual respect rather than military occupation, aiming to deter adversaries and build regional stability through economic ties.
17 Articles
17 Articles
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Jimmy Carter’s Art of the Deal
Early one morning in spring 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s sharp-elbowed national security adviser, walked into the Oval Office to find the U.S. president pensively spinning a vast globe. He was trying to figure out the best historical site to hold a make-or-break Middle East peace summit with Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. To the surprise of many of Carter’s advisers (though not Brzezinski, nor his secreta…

Susan Shelley: Who had better Mideast ideas, Trump or Bush?
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The Only Trump Doctrine Is Dealmaking
American presidents are supposed to have a grand theory of foreign policy — a proper doctrine, like Harry Truman and James Monroe and all their imitators — because how else would we categorize them? Various doctrines have been attributed to Donald Trump over the years: Jacksonian, realist, nationalist, isolationist, unconventional dove, conventional hawk, anti-imperialist, neo-imperialist. (And of course Putinist, fascist, Manchurian candidate.)…
Donald Trump Reshapes US Mideast Policy. Can Deals Work Instead?
Trump vowed during his swing through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that there would be no more "lectures on how to live", saying the region had achieved a "modern miracle the Arabian way."
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