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Is Trump’s Middle East Policy a Break From the Past?

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump visited three countries in the Middle East—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar—on the first scheduled foreign trip of his second term. While many of the headlines from the trip focused on the 747 jetliner Qatar donated for use as Air Force One, it’s probably more notable that Trump rejected decades of Western intervention in the region and declared that there would be “no more lectures” from America. Is the Trump administration re-aligning American priorities in the region? F. Gregory Gause, visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute, joins FP Live to discuss why the Gulf monarchies are rising in importance. 

Suggested reading (FP links are paywall-free):

Howard W. French: What Trump Got Right in the Middle East

Agathe Demarais: The U.S. Economy Is Now Trump Enterprises

Michael Hirsh: A New Authoritarian Era in the Mideast?

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