Alex Callinicos: Trump rubs against limits of US power

Trump during his visit to Qatar in 2017

For a president who puts “America First”, Donald Trump is hardly ignoring the rest of the world. On the contrary, he’s engaged in a blizzard of diplomatic initiatives. These particularly concern the Middle East, which he’s just visited.

Recently, his administration has made a deal with the Houthi resistance group in Yemen, ending the very ineffective US bombing campaign there. Trump made time in Saudi Arabia to meet Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda president of Syria, announcing the end of US sanctions.

Potentially very significantly, Trump has initiated negotiations with the Islamic Republican regime in Iran over its nuclear programme. And, of course, there are the talks about securing an end to the Ukraine war—which so far have taken place in the Middle East.

This hyper-activity is partly a function of Trump’s famously “transactional” style. Previous US administrations emphasised “linkage”, a favourite word of Henry Kissinger’s. It meant to connect different issues, matching concessions on some with gains on others.

Trump seems much less interested in this. He wants an end to the Ukraine war to draw closer to Russia. But the logic of an opening to al-Sharaa is to reduce Russian influence in Syria.

So far, Trump’s getting away with this. Philip Gordon, Kamala Harris’s national security adviser, has ruefully paid tribute to “his ability to take on established orthodoxies without paying a political price”.

One notable example is the fact that he didn’t bother to visit Israel, but only the Gulf states. “Benjamin Netanyahu downgraded to spectator on Donald Trump’s Middle East tour”, ran a Financial Times newspaper headline.

This is partly a response to the shifting realities of money and power. Trump recently called the US “a giant, beautiful store”. “And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay,” he said.  

But Trump also wants money flowing into the store. The Gulf is now a major centre of global capitalism. “Israel doesn’t have a trillion dollars to invest in the US. The Saudis and the Qataris do,” Michael Oren, ex-Israeli ambassador to the US, told the Financial Times.

And the Gulf States are now much more self-assertive. They have refused to join in sanctions against Russia. When Trump was last president, they and Netanyahu successfully lobbied him to scrap the nuclear deal that previous president Barack Obama had made with Iran.

But now the great regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran have re-established diplomatic relations—in a deal brokered by China. One changed reality is that China is now the biggest market for Gulf energy.

The Gaza genocide has also reduced the US’s pull. Trump was fawned on his trip, with Qatar offering him a $400 million luxury airliner to replace Air Force One.

But in Saudi Arabia’s capital, he pushed for them to join the Abraham Accords, under which some Gulf States recognise Israel. He was greeted with total silence.

The shifting global balance of power may in the end frustrate Trump. None of his deals seem near fruition. While campaigning for president, he said he could end the Ukraine war “in a day”. But Vladimir Putin has resisted his call for a proper ceasefire, let alone a full-scale settlement.

Just as he did under Joe Biden, Netanyahu has been ignoring Washington’s pleas for a ceasefire in Gaza. And Steve Witkoff, Trump’s real-estate crony turned negotiator, said last Sunday that the US would insist Iran give up enriching uranium—a complete dealbreaker with Iran’s leaders.

This may just be a negotiating ploy. Trump does seem serious about his deals. He overruled the military chief of US Central Command and his national security adviser Mike Waltz, who both wanted a long-term campaign against the Houthis. He also fired Waltz, a traditional Republican “Iran hawk”. And Putin may decide a Ukraine deal would be worthwhile as a means to draw closer to the US.

But Trump faces some hard lessons in the limits of US power.