Opulence, business deals and a $400m plane from Qatar: Takeaways from Trump's Mideast tour - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Trump toured the marble and gilded palaces of Gulf rulers and deemed them "perfecto" and "very hard to buy."
58% : Trump enthused it was "the biggest order in the history of, I think, aviation, certainly of that size" of jets.
57% : Not this one, as Trump celebrated his business deals with Gulf royals and admired their wealth.
53% : " Throughout the trip, Trump felt more than comfortable dishing out exaggeration and hyperbole.
52% : Some rights advocates said Trump officials gave them private assurances the administration was working on behalf of detained Americans and rights advocates.
52% : Trump said he was impressed with al-Sharaa, who not that long ago had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
51% : Trump was already facing questions about conflicts of interest for traveling to the Middle East to shape U.S. policy at a time when his family's business interests in the region have boomed.
44% : Trump barely mentioned either conflict on his trip - and when he did, it was generally in the context of his assertion that they wouldn't have occurred had he won reelection in 2020.
43% : Trump then took it another step by agreeing to meet al-Sharaa.
43% : Trump told reporters Thursday as Air Force One was about to land in Qatar.
43% : Trump also went overboard in running down the economic record of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, at one point declaring, "The days of economic misery under the last administration are rapidly giving way to the greatest economy in the history of the world.
41% : Trump marveled at Gulf state opulence but held his tongue on human rights Presidential trips to the Middle East usually feature at least some public calls for authoritarian governments to improve their human rights efforts.
41% : "I don't believe anything's going to happen whether you like it or not, until he and I get together," Trump said.
39% : But Trump signaled Monday that he was having a change of heart and was moving toward lifting the Syria sanctions.
36% : " Trump said it was recommendations from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that nudged him to take a chance on al-Sharra.
36% : Because if you don't do that, they don't have a chance,'" Trump said.
34% : While Trump was in the Mideast, Vladimir Putin opted to skip direct peace talks with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite the U.S. president's strong calls for them to meet face to face.
31% : Israel conducted significant airstrikes all week in Gaza as Trump was in the region and the fighting on the ground appeared to escalate Friday morning even before Trump left the UAE.
30% : Trump was scheduled to fly back to Washington on Friday, but tried to keep people guessing until the end.
28% : As Israel stepped up an offensive in Gaza -- a prelude to a promised full takeover of the territory if Hamas doesn't release the remaining hostages in its captivity -- Trump was again musing about the creation of a "freedom zone" in its territory.
27% : "Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE," Trump posted on his social media site during his Middle East swing.
26% : Tommy Pigott, a deputy spokesman at the State Department, declined to say whether Trump raised those or other rights issues in discussions with Gulf royals.
24% : While Trump's trip initially was conceived as a visit to reward countries that invest in the United States, Trump at one point hoped it also would herald significant steps to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
21% : Trump has been pushing Putin and Zelenskyy to move with greater haste to end Russia's grinding war in Ukraine.

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