Trump’s tour heralds a new era in US-Gulf relations

In The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite Robert Kaplan reminds us of the episode in which April Glaspie, then US ambassador to Ba’athist Iraq and “an Arabist of the old school”, met Saddam Hussain in July 1990.

Glaspie failed explicitly to tell the Iraqi dictator, who was massing troops on the border and engaging in a war of words with Kuwait at the time, that an invasion of his southern neighbour would be met with force.

Kaplan, who served in the Israeli army, contrasts what he sees as Glaspie’s lack of effectiveness – Saddam was hellbent on the invasion anyway – with that of Jerry Weaver, another US diplomat who served in Sudan.

Weaver hunted big game, drove trucks and hung out with border guards, smugglers and small-time traders. He spoke Arabic but was not a blue-blood. And he knew Sudan. Weaver was instrumental in evacuating the Falasha Jews from Ethiopia during the 1980s.

Kaplan’s contrast of the sophisticate with the redneck came to mind during Donald Trump’s four-day visit to Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia last week.

The relationship between the US and its Gulf allies has been close for decades – but it has been called into question more recently over issues such as technology transfer, the rise of China and Washington’s military commitment. Last week we saw those questions put to rest.

Trump’s lack of interest in ideology, preference for trade and investment, and personal warmth may not have been sophisticated – but they were effective.

As Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, said after signing another series of multi-billion-dollar agreements: “I think after signing these documents, we are going to another level of relationship between Qatar and the United States.” You can say that again.

Here was a US president conducting what at times amounted to a domestic political rally 7,000 miles away from home. And the hosts, although sometimes taken aback, lapped it up.

Yes, some of these agreements are outlandish. Water scarcity is likely to limit the Gulf’s immense ambitions in artificial intelligence for the time being, according to Chris Hamill-Stewart.

Saudi Arabia’s plan to build one of the world’s largest artificial intelligence infrastructures may lead to oversupply in the short term, as Megha Merani has written.

Humain,  the kingdom’s newly formed AI champion, wants to build 1.9 gigawatts of data centre capacity by 2030. The computing power based on the number of chips being deployed “could be far more than the demand of the country”, according to consultants – so much of it will have to be exported.

And Trump simultaneously needs gasoline at the pump to be less than $3 a gallon while Saudi Arabia and many of its allies in Opec+ cannot live with $60-a-barrel oil. Those two realities are contradictory, as Frank Kane has written.

But these are details. The theatre was what mattered.

As our columnist Jonathan Fulton notes, the series of agreements across artificial intelligence, chip manufacture, military sales and co-investments in emerging technologies demonstrates that in the Arabian Gulf the US remains the indispensable power.

China will continue to play an important role based on its considerable strengths in construction, solar panels and electric vehicles. Beijing views the Arabian Gulf almost exclusively through a commercial prism anyway.

But the US brings unrivalled levels of expertise in aerospace, defence, nuclear, artificial intelligence, chip manufacture and advanced extraction techniques around LNG and enhanced oil recovery. 

Trump’s hosts recognised that last week and joined happily in a closer symbiosis. You have to hand it to all concerned: the trip was highly effective.

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