Trump thinks he is shaping the Middle East. Instead, it's Gulf states that will dictate US foreign policy | Simon Tisdall

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : If Trump wants to be sure of Gulf support for his wider agenda, he must give something significant back.
53% : Might this big fat carrot be the main reason Trump chose Saudi Arabia for his first post-inauguration state visit, as he did in 2017?
45% : If Trump were a braver, more honest man, he would go to Gaza next week and see for himself the devastation he and his far-right allies have wreaked.
41% : Gulf leaders have the leverage to set Trump straight, if they decide to use it.
38% : In Riyadh, Trump will face intense pressure to end Israel's blockade and reinstate the ceasefire.
37% : Trump may very well take the plunge.
34% : Trump needs them as allies in his trade and tariff feud with China.
33% : US-Israel relations are growing increasingly strained, with Trump so far declining invitations to add Jerusalem to his trip.
33% : Yet Trump, unlike Britain and the EU, has refused to relax Assad-era sanctions.
31% : The US president travels to meet the region's leaders facing an uncomfortable reality: he may need them more than they need him Donald Trump is accustomed to getting his own way.
31% : Trump knows he cannot afford to ignore the views of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and his Gulf counterparts on Gaza, Syria and Yemen.
26% : Arab leaders, backed by Turkey, also want Trump to curb Israel's military operations in Lebanon and especially in Syria, which it has repeatedly attacked since Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship fell to Islamist insurgents in December.
25% : Yet while Trump was supportive two months ago, talking foolishly about building a "Riviera of the Middle East", he seems belatedly to have realised peace does not lie that way.
25% : Obscured by these weighty considerations is the dismaying extent to which Trump is legitimising and boosting anti-democratic, authoritarian Gulf regimes notorious for institutionalised misogyny and human rights abuses.

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