By Mel Gurtov
A Golden Age
“In the United States, we’ve announced the golden age of America,” Trump said at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh. “And with the help of the people of the Middle East, the people in this room, partners throughout the region, the golden age of the Middle East can proceed right alongside of us.”
What Trump really means by “golden age” is that he and his Middle East friends will get the gold, continuing a saga that began in his first term when, as now, he made the region the first place to travel. Since then, Trump, Jared Kushner, and others in Trump’s inner circle have courted and been feted by royalty—and been rewarded with a hands-off approach on human rights abuses, oil pricing, support of Hamas, and other matters dear to the autocrats.
President Trump’s 4-day trip to the Middle East was an exercise in corruption and blatant conflicts of interest. The actual beginning of the trip was Qatar’s “gift” of a 747 Boeing jet that Trump immediately accepted, as though the Constitution’s prohibition of such gifts did not apply.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, at one time a lobbyist for Qatar, had no problem approving the gift. Trump intends to use the jet, if it is ever delivered, for his personal use after leaving office.
But illegality aside, there are many objections to this transaction, even from some Republicans—e.g., that retrofitting it for travel while Trump is in office will cost hundreds of millions of dollars at taxpayers’ expense, that making the aircraft secure will take a few years, and that Qatar will surely want a return on its investment.
Where Money Talks
As for Trump’s time in the Middle East, which included Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, it was a perfect example of how money talks when the Felon-in-Chief presides. It was mainly a business trip, a follow-up to his son Eric’s deal for a Trump hotel, a $2-billion cryptocurrency transaction, and a golf course in Dubai. More Trump hotels will follow.
The Saudis, always glad to see Trump, made the usual array of false promises, starting with a $142-billion arms deal—touted as the “largest defence sales agreement in history, and a pledge to invest $600 billion in the United States, including $20 billion in artificial intelligence data centres, purchases of gas turbines and other energy equipment worth $14.2 billion, nearly $5 billion in Boeing 737-8 jets, and other deals,” The Guardian reported.
The numbers don’t add up to anything close to $600 billion, but no matter. Promotion of these big deals took place at a luncheon attended by some of the top US corporate CEOs, including Elon Musk. Trump chortled that the CEOs took away quite a few checks from the lunch.
What did they give away in return? Well, one thing they have given away is advanced computer chips for AI. A new AI hub is being built in Abu Dhabi, and hundreds of thousands of chips from Nvidia are going to be shipped there.
Saudi Arabia will also receive these chips, raising the question whether Trump has outsourced a national security-sensitive commodity. The New York Times is reporting on “skepticism and alarm” among present and former US officials about “inadequate protections to prevent the technology from benefiting China,” with which these countries have important ties.
US officials are also said to be concerned about paving the way for the “world’s biggest data centers” to be in the Middle East. Whatever happened to Trump’s plan for bringing big business back home?
Engaging Syria
Foreign policy was not the primary agenda on Trump’s schedule. He did not visit Israel, much less say anything about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Speculation is that Trump and Netanyahu are not on good terms these days, mainly due to Trump’s bid to engage Iran on the nuclear issue rather than attack it, and to the arrangement with the Houthis in Yemen not to attack US shipping (leaving Israel uncovered).
Nor did Trump press the Saudis to normalize relations with Israel. He said he hoped they would sign on to the Abraham Accords, but recognized that the Saudis would have to do so on their own timetable.
But credit where credit is due: Trump’s meeting with Ahmed al-Shara, the new president of Syria, is surely a positive development after years of tyrannical rule by Bashar al-Assad. Trump announced that sanctions on Syria will be dropped, and the Syrians presented him with plans for a Trump Tower. (Gotta have that hotel!)
At the meeting, Trump proposed that Syria mend ties with Israel, get rid of foreign terrorists, and accept US development aid (even with USAID’s doors closed?). So it goes; but if Syria’s government respects human rights, ends its military ties to Russia, and gets rid of ISIS, that will be no small achievement.
A statement from the Syrian Foreign Ministry described the meeting as “historic” and said that Trump had “affirmed that the administration in Washington is committed to playing a positive and constructive role during this sensitive period.” The Saudis, who set up the US-Syria meeting, scored a victory here. “Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump said.
“Golden Age”? No ordinary people, in the Middle East or here, will benefit from these deals. The profits will go into the pockets of Middle East and US oligarchs.
Remarkable that such deals can take place as genocide occurs in Israel, war rages in Ukraine, US-China tensions remain high, and millions of Americans worry about their health care and jobs. But that’s the house that Trump built.
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
