Why Trump’s Space for Deal-Making in the Middle East Has Shrunk

The first Trump administration’s Middle East policy had two main elements: battering Iran’s economy and attempting to isolate Iran by building closer ties between its main Arab adversaries and Israel.

On the second part, the administration made a major breakthrough in its final months: the so-called Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. The accords also came with American promises of large weapons deals for some of the signatories.

Officials at the time said they hoped that Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s most influential country in geopolitics, would eventually also sign and recognize Israel — a goal that President Biden also pursued without success.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Middle East agenda remains unclear, but what is certain is that he will inherit a geopolitical landscape in the Middle East that is significantly different compared with that of four years ago.

Alliances have shifted, and priorities have changed. Age-old tensions have deepened in some places and thawed in others, while the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, could convulse the region for years.

Last week, Mr. Trump appointed Steve Witcoff, a real estate magnate and campaign donor, as his special envoy to the Middle East. Mr. Witcoff, a staunch defender of Israel, was in attendance when Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed Congress in July. The president-elect’s choice for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, and for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, have also offered unwavering support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

It has long been a mantra of Mr. Trump’s that in foreign affairs, as in business, he can “make a deal.” For many countries in the Middle East, transactional foreign policy is a way of life, and even last week Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman and Trump adviser, met privately with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.

But compared to four years ago, the space for any deal has shrunk for numerous reasons.

“If the Trump 2.0 people think they can just pick up where they left off in 2020, they are completely misreading the situation,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a Middle East expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “That will become very apparent very quickly.”

Palestinians can no longer be sidelined.

Palestinians were mostly sidelined when Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, led the White House effort to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states during the last administration.

The Arab states made no demands for concrete steps toward a Palestinian state as a prerequisite for a diplomatic pact with Israel. As a result, Mr. Netanyahu gave up almost nothing to achieve a signature diplomatic victory — several of Israel’s historical adversaries officially recognized its right to exist.

The Biden administration pursued a similar strategy in 2023 during an effort to achieve a diplomatic pact between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but the Oct. 7 attacks and war in Gaza upended any prospects for a deal. In short, Saudi Arabia’s price for a deal went up, given the domestic furor in the kingdom and in other Arab countries over the bloodshed in Gaza. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, has said publicly that Israel must commit to a Palestinian state before Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel.

“The kingdom will not cease its tireless efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and we affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without one,” the crown prince said in a public speech to his advisers in September.

There is always the possibility that Prince Mohammed softens his demand, or drops it for the right price. This is a leader who, during negotiations before the Oct. 7 attacks, told American officials that a state for the Palestinians was not a high priority for him, and there is little question among Middle East experts that the Saudi crown prince sees Western investment in the kingdom as one of his main priorities toward his goal of modernizing Saudi Arabia’s economy.

But in the current environment, such a move would bring greater risk to his standing both in the kingdom and across the Arab world.

Israel’s ultraright government is unlikely to bargain.

The Saudis may now want more out of a deal with Israel, but Israel is now willing to give less.

Since Mr. Trump was last in office, Mr. Netanyahu returned to power leading the most right-wing government in the nation’s history. Ultranationalist ministers in the governing coalition have spent the past two years calling for more Israeli settlements in the West Bank and stoking settler violence against Palestinians there. Since the Oct. 7 attacks, politicians like Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, have publicly advocated pushing Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and reclaiming the territory for Israelis.

To keep his coalition government together, and to delay elections that might bring his defeat as well as his reckoning over the Oct. 7 attacks, Mr. Netanyahu is beholden to Israel’s far right. As a result, he is in no position to make any meaningful concessions to Palestinians as part of any grand bargain in the Middle East.

Indeed, Mr. Smotrich boasted publicly last week that the election of Mr. Trump paved the way for the opposite to take place. Next year, he said, Israel will take back the West Bank and bring “sovereignty” for Jews there.

The Middle East is realigning, without the U.S. and Israel.

The last Trump administration viewed deals between Israel and the Arab states as part of a long-term strategy against Iran, which for years has waged bloody proxy wars for regional supremacy with Gulf Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

But relations between Iran and the Gulf States are now thawing. Over the past year, Iranian diplomats have met directly with officials from Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and other Gulf nations. Last month, Iran’s foreign minister traveled to several Gulf countries with the goal, according to Iranian state media, of stopping Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza and Lebanon.

It is, at best, a tenuous détente. But for these Arab states, it is one born partly from pragmatism — a realization that the United States has for years been trying to disengage from the Middle East, at least militarily.

Saudi officials use one episode from the last Trump administration to reinforce this point: Iran’s 2019 drone and missile attacks on Aramco oil facilities deep inside the kingdom. After the attacks, the White House chose not to retaliate.

For its part, Saudi Arabia might push the next Trump administration to make a formal defense pact, which would commit the United States to defending the kingdom if it comes under attack. Chip Usher, a former top Middle East analyst, said that the Saudis would be happy to have “a foot in both camps.” They could have ”rapprochement with Iran, even if it’s half sincere, even as they vigorously pursue security commitments with the United States.”

A defense pact would require ratification by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, a high bar that is unlikely to be reached if the Saudis don’t also agree to formally recognize Israel as part of the deal.

So the Saudis and other Gulf countries are likely to continue to hedge their bets. “Gulf leaders are making their calculations looking 10 to 15 years forward about how U.S. disengagement might change the balance of power,” Mr. Ulrichsen said.

“That is the reality that the Trump team is going to have to live with.”