Fate of Gaza will hang over Trump's Middle East swing

WASHINGTON — As he prepares to jet off Monday on his first working foreign trip of a breakneck second term, President Donald Trump will be met head-on with the uncertain future of war-torn Gaza and its beleaguered residents — as congressional Democrats remain flummoxed by his emerging foreign policy approach.

Trump chose Saudi Arabia and neighboring United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the first countries to receive an official visit, snubbing traditional allies such as Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and France — and, notably, Israel. The Gulf Arab countries he’s visiting next week have been heavily involved in talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza, with the future of the devastated territory very much up in the air.

The American president, whose first overseas trip of this term was to Italy for the funeral of Pope Francis, is expected to hear from the Arab leaders about several pressing matters. Atop that list is ending the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, setting a long-term plan to rebuild and stabilize the strip, as well as the potential normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The White House has set few tangible goals for the trip.

“President Trump will return to reemphasize his continued vision for a proud, prosperous and successful Middle East, where the United States and Middle Eastern nations are in cooperative relationships, and where extremism is defeated in the place of commerce and cultural exchanges,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Friday press briefing. “This trip ultimately highlights how we stand on the brink of the ‘Golden Age’ for both America and the Middle East, united by a shared vision of stability, opportunity and mutual respect.”

Leavitt, however, didn’t offer much detail about how Trump planned to pursue such goals or how he intended to achieve them in such a complex and sometimes unstable region.

As congressional Democrats continue hammering the president over his treatment of some traditional American allies, Trump for a second time has chosen Saudi Arabia as his first working foreign visit. That breaks with other recent U.S. presidents: Joe Biden’s first international trip was to the United Kingdom, Barack Obama’s was to Canada; George W. Bush’s was to Mexico; and Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan all chose Canada.

Trump and his Saudi, Emirati and Qatari counterparts also are expected to discuss his global tariffs and how each country might achieve some relief or a revised trade arrangement with Washington. All three were recently hit with import duties.

But standing above other issues will be Gaza and relations with Israel, analysts say.

“The Saudis … seem less willing to engage with Israel than they were in the first Trump administration because of the Gaza war and the renewed salience of the Palestinian issue in Arab public opinion,” F. Gregory Gause III, a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, said in a video for the Middle East Institute.

“Riyadh has been very clear that formal diplomatic relations with Israel will require an Israeli commitment to Palestinian statehood, something the current Israeli government does not accept,” Gause added. “The damage done to Iran’s regional position from the repercussions of the war in Gaza also lessens the strategic rationale for Saudi Arabia to improve relations with Israel.”

‘Back their plan’

During the Middle East swing, Trump’s Arab counterparts are expected to try selling him on their plan for Gaza. That blueprint calls for the creation of a Palestinian governing committee to oversee Gaza, which would report to Palestinian officials in Ramallah in the West Bank, with no Hamas participation. It also proposes a United Nations-organized Gaza peacekeeping force, as well as a joint Egyptian-Jordanian effort to train a new Palestinian security force to eventually patrol the strip.

“The viability of the Arab plan still depends on U.S. support — only Washington can force (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu to negotiate again. To that end, Arab states should pursue their plan, led by Saudi Arabia. President Trump has entrusted Riyadh with a prominent position in Russia-Ukraine peace talks and is seeking a $600 billion (Saudi) investment in the U.S.,” former United Nations official Zizette Darkazally wrote recently for the London-based Chatham House think tank.

“Saudi Arabia and Arab states should use this, and whatever other leverage they have, to help convince Trump to back their plan,” Darkazally added. “If there is no political process, Israel will reoccupy the Gaza Strip. … For the U.S., its credibility and interests in the region would be further undermined, and Trump’s second term will be forever associated with entrenching illegal occupation and heightening regional tensions.”

Congressional Democrats have criticized Trump for not yet living up to his campaign promise to swiftly end the fighting in Gaza. Senate Foreign Relations member Chris Coons of Delaware and 24 other Senate Democrats on Friday called for Trump to use the trip to advocate a ceasefire in Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid into the enclave.

During a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing last month, Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz mocked Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over Gaza and send its Palestinian inhabitants to housing camps in other Arab countries while redeveloping the enclave as a luxury resort destination.

“We heard that we’re all going to vacation in Gaza. I mean, you guys (are) excited to go vacation in the ‘Riviera of the Middle East,’” Moskowitz said during a broader criticism of Trump’s foreign policies. “You know, we’ve been treating Canada and Greenland, for the first three months, tougher than we were treating Iran.”

‘Enrich the president’

Another matter that could complicate talks during Trump’s first stop in Saudi Arabia are the president’s business ties to the kingdom, which some Capitol Hill Democrats have questioned.

For example, in a Tuesday statement, Senate Foreign Relations member Christopher S. Murphy zeroed in on Trump’s digital currency, called “$TRUMP,” which the Connecticut Democrat noted “exploded in value upon limited release and drove Trump’s net worth temporarily north of $50 billion.”

“Each time the coin is released and traded, Trump makes money from trading fees, and he and his family have made more than $100 million from these fees,” Murphy said. “There is no way to know who is buying the coin, which leaves the door wide open for billionaires, Russian oligarchs, and Saudi princes to secretly purchase $TRUMP and directly enrich the president in order to curry favor.”

Murphy this week introduced legislation aimed at blocking federal officials, including the president, vice president, members of Congress, senior Cabinet officials, and their spouses and children, from using their positions “to profit off digital assets such as meme coins.”

Leavitt said Friday that Trump has complied with “all” relevant federal laws on the subject, after Murphy contended in his statement that Trump’s currency amounts to “the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president.”

“Donald Trump is essentially posting his Venmo for any billionaire CEO or foreign oligarch to cash in some favors by secretly sending him millions of dollars,” the Democrat said.

Texas A&M’s Gause called the president’s business ties to Saudi Arabia “unprecedented,” noting that Trump’s “personal business interests are tied up with Saudi Arabia through the LIV Golf Tour, which plays at Trump golf courses, and various real estate projects in the Middle East, including a proposed Trump Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arab’s second-largest city.”

Gause added a twist to any notion that Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, would march through global affairs in lockstep.

“Despite these (business) ties, there remains an element of mistrust in the Saudi-American relationship,” he said. “The Saudi leadership was shocked and disappointed in President Trump when he failed to respond against Iran when Iran attacked Saudi oil facilities in September 2019. … That mistrust is one of the reasons MBS pursued a security treaty with the Biden administration.”

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