FALCON POWERS – Arab Gulf states are hedging their bets on Donald Trump’s return to the White House, telling the former president’s surrogates they are waiting in the wings for his new administration, in an unexpected hitch to the Biden administration’s Middle East diplomacy.
The Gulf States’ calm response to poll numbers indicating that Trump’s chances of returning to the White House are rising stands in sharp contrast to the panic among some of the US’s European allies who are on edge over how Trump will handle the Nato alliance and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“It’s a tale of two partners,” Gregory Gause, an expert on Gulf politics at Texas A&M University, told Middle East Eye. “The Europeans and Gulf states both experienced a Trump term. For the former, it was a disaster but for the latter, it was pretty good,” he said.
“They know exactly what they are going to get and aren’t worried”.
The Biden administration has a cluster of open files with the oil-rich Gulf states, the most urgent revolves around reaching a ceasefire in Gaza and crafting a plan for post-war governance of the enclave.
