President Trump is an America Firster, but he has an undeniable affinity for the Arab world. He would have made a good sheik: he doesn’t drink, he loves developing flashy properties to show off his power and wealth, and he’s brutally realistic about the role of oil (and other commodities) in world politics.
In his first run for president eight years ago, Trump not only surprised the Republican establishment by criticising the Iraq War, he surprised the war’s critics by saying that if America was going to invade, we should at least have seized the oilfields.
Trump would rather do business than wage war with Tehran
The Abraham Accords were a triumph of the President’s first-term foreign policy, and this week Trump is back in the Middle East to strike new deals for peace and profit alike. In Riyadh on Tuesday he declared ‘a land of peace, safety, harmony, opportunity, innovation, and achievement right here in the Middle East’ is ‘within our grasp’.
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