President Trump on Friday concluded a three-nation Middle East tour marked by pomp, opulent receptions and announcements of business deals with wealthy Persian Gulf states.
Mr. Trump met with business leaders in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, before boarding Air Force One for the flight back to the United States. Earlier this week, he visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the first major international visit of his second term.
Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s trip:
He broke the diplomatic ice with Syria.
Mr. Trump spoke with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Shara, on Wednesday in an extraordinary meeting that reversed longstanding U.S. policies toward the country and Mr. al-Shara. A former militant who once led a branch of Al Qaeda, Mr. al-Shara came to power as the head of the rebel alliance that ousted the former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.
A day earlier, Mr. Trump had announced that he would lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, which would offer a significant economic lifeline to Mr. al-Shara as he tries to rebuild a country devastated by years of civil war. His unexpected announcement drew enthusiastic applause from a crowd of dignitaries in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Big deals were announced, but details were lacking.
The White House has said Mr. Trump’s visit resulted in deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars for U.S. companies, including a large order from Qatar for Boeing passenger jets.
But details have been sparse and some of the agreements had already been in the works. In the case of the Boeing deal, Mr. Trump boasted that it was worth $200 billion, but a fact sheet from the White House said the true number was $96 billion.
Mr. Trump said that the total investments from the three nations he visited could reach as high as $4 trillion. While much of that total comes in the form of long-term pledges that may or may not materialize — and counts some deals that were already underway — leaders of the Gulf nations were all too happy to supply Mr. Trump with the eye-popping figures.
Trump pointed to progress in Iran talks.
Mr. Trump brought up nuclear negotiations with Iran on several occasions. On Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump said he was offering Tehran “a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future,” while insisting the United States would not allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon.
And after a senior Iranian official spoke in an interview with NBC News about the prospect of “better relations” with the United States, Mr. Trump shared the comments on his social media page on Thursday. That was seen by Iranian commentators as a sign that he was willing to abandon the maximalist position of shutting down Iran’s nuclear program.
On his trip, Mr. Trump asked for help from Qatar, which has played the role of intermediary between the United States and Iran, in reaching an agreement. In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Trump also heaped praise on Qatar and said that Iran was “very lucky” to have such an ally.
He made an unusual reference to suffering in Gaza.
Mr. Trump did not visit America’s biggest regional ally, Israel, and largely sidestepped the conflict in Gaza even as Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians across the territory over the past week.
But on Friday, he said he wanted to see the conflict resolved and made a rare acknowledgment of the civilian suffering in Gaza. “There’s a lot of people starving, a lot of bad things going on,” he said. Mr. Trump has remained largely silent on Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza even as the civilian toll mounts. After his turnaround on Syria, Gulf Arab leaders who met with Mr. Trump seized on the opportunity to address that stance. His seemingly more sympathetic tone on Gaza was a notable shift given his longstanding close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Russia-Ukraine talks loomed in the background, but Trump stayed away.
Mr. Trump kept people guessing over whether he would extend his trip by traveling to Turkey, where cease-fire talks involving Russia and Ukraine were going on. Ultimately he decided not to go.
Russian and Ukrainian officials were in Istanbul for talks, along with top Trump administration officials, but President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was not attending and expectations for a breakthrough were low.
Mr. Trump himself lowered expectations in comments on Thursday, saying nothing meaningful would happen until he met personally with Mr. Putin. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he might call the Russian leader and would meet him “as soon as we can set it up.”
Qasim Nauman is a Times editor in Seoul, covering breaking news from around the world.
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