Latest update : 2017-05-19
President Donald Trump may be embroiled in accusations of wrongdoing in the United States, but none of that is likely to colour his visit to Saudi Arabia on Friday, where he is expected to be greeted with warmth and praise.
The trip, Trump’s first international tour, includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Italy and Belgium. The President’s weekend in the desert kingdom will centre around three main events: a Saudi-US summit, a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-US summit and an Arab Islamic American Summit, which is to be attended by leaders of the world’s Islamic nations.
While in the kingdom, Trump is scheduled to give a speech on radical Islam and, in keeping with his own predilections, participate in a Twitter forum with young people.
Several of his hosts, the Saudis among them, are invested in making the trip a triumph. They see Trump as an ally because of his vociferous opposition to the Iranian government, which the Saudis see as a destabilising force in the region. Relations between the kingdom and the US had frayed toward the end of President Barack Obama’s tenure.
While President Obama had strayed from longstanding US alliances in the Middle East, Trump has “signaled a return to a traditional view, which is that there are good powers and bad powers in the region,” said Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
In that view, Saudi Arabia and Israel are in the good column. Iran is in the bad.
A foregone conclusion
The success of Trump’s trip has not been left to chance. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have already negotiated, or are in the final stages of negotiating, accords with the United States that are expected to be announced during Trump’s visit. Among them is a series of arms deals with the kingdom worth more than $100 billion. That number could rise as high as $300 billion over the next decade, a senior White House official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The arms deal highlights a welcome reversal of policy for the Saudis. Last year the Obama administration halted some weapon sales to the Kingdom because of its deadly military operation in Yemen. The Trump administration scrapped that decision in March.
Trump and Saudi officials are also expected to announce a package of Saudi investment in US infrastructure. And Trump is expected to lay out his vision for a Gulf State-backed NATO-style defense force for the Middle East.
“The Saudis are basically trying to present Trump with win-win situations,” Haykel said.
Trump will hold bilateral meetings with leaders of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, some of whom he has already encountered. On Monday he hosted Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed at the White House. The two governments recently concluded a defense cooperation agreement, and the State Department last week approved a $2 billion sale of arms to the UAE.
Tackling radical Islam
The President’s speech on radical Islam will coincide with the opening of a centre in Riyadh dedicated to promoting moderate Islam. The address will be “inspiring but direct” and will highlight the need to confront radical ideology, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said.
The speech is intended, in part, to signal that the President has moved away from the inflammatory language he used about Muslims during his campaign and his repeated assertions that Saudi Arabia was behind the attacks on 9/11.
“The gesture in choosing Saudi Arabia as his first country [to visit as president] is a refreshing pivot from the campaign rhetoric,” said Fatima Baeshen, a director at the Arabia Foundation in Washington, D.C. “It’s symbolic to the global Muslim community, given that Saudi Arabia is home to two holy sites in Islam.”
A two-way street
The trip has benefits for the Saudis as well. The weekend will include a Saudi-US CEO forum on Saturday, and several investment deals are expected to be inked as part of the Vision 2030 social and economic reform initiative the Kingdom unveiled last year. Saudi Arabia will also issue new licenses allowing US companies to operate there.
The trip won’t all be talk of business and terror. Over the weekend, American country singer Toby Keith will give a concert in Riyadh. The event is free—but open to men only.
Trump narrowly avoided a sticky moment at the summit of Arab leaders. Early in the week, Sudan’s foreign minister told reporters in Geneva that his nation’s president, Omar al-Bashir, would attend the forum of Arab leaders. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for war crimes against Bashir, and the idea that an American president would attend an event with an accused war criminal outraged former US officials and human rights activists.
But Trump dodged that bullet.
No comments:
Post a Comment