The Week: Trump in the Middle East

• Our advice on the plane: Mr. President, get your mind out of the Qatar.

• President Donald Trump took a productive trip to the Middle East this week. Ahead of it, the New York Times predicted that Trump would go abroad not to retail a foreign policy vision but to secure “business deals.” And he secured plenty of those—and routinely inflated their value (a $600 billion deal with the Saudi government turned out to be a $238 billion deal, and Qatar will supposedly generate $1.2 trillion in “economic exchange,” which is six times the country’s total GDP). But Trump did more. He declared his intention to withdraw all U.S. sanctions against Syria in recognition of its new, post–Bashar al-Assad reality. He pledged to “protect” the Qataris, notwithstanding their history of supporting Islamist terrorism, and he renewed his commitments to Saudi security. This approach is not the wholesale retrenchment from the region advocated by the so-called “restrainers” in the Trump administration. Perhaps that’s why Trump, in his Riyadh speech, denounced the “neocons” and “nation builders” who haunt the MAGA mind.

About the Author

NR Editors

NR Editors includes members of the editorial staff of our magazine and website.

Featured Tags

• Our advice on the plane: Mr. President, get your mind out of the Qatar.

• President Donald Trump took a productive trip to the Middle East this week. Ahead of it, the New York Times predicted that Trump would go abroad not to retail a foreign policy vision but to secure “business deals.” And he secured plenty of those—and routinely inflated their value (a $600 billion deal with the Saudi government turned out to be a $238 billion deal, and Qatar will supposedly generate $1.2 trillion in “economic exchange,” which is six times the country’s total GDP). But Trump did more. He declared his intention to withdraw all U.S. sanctions against Syria in recognition of its new, post–Bashar al-Assad reality. He pledged to “protect” the Qataris, notwithstanding their history of supporting Islamist terrorism, and he renewed his commitments to Saudi security. This approach is not the wholesale retrenchment from the region advocated by the so-called “restrainers” in the Trump administration. Perhaps that’s why Trump, in his Riyadh speech, denounced the “neocons” and “nation builders” who haunt the MAGA mind.