Trump’s Retro-Futurist Vision for the Middle East

[corbe]

Trump’s Retro-Futurist Vision for the Middle East

Mike Watson
May 17, 2025

As is his habit, Donald Trump made his Middle East visit a whirlwind of activity. Saudi Arabia pledged to plow $600 billion into the U.S. economy amid a flurry of other high-tech announcements. Trump’s personal empire is making out well too: Qatar is donating a new Air Force One that is supposed to eventually be part of the Trump presidential library, and the president’s family has signed deals for golf courses and beachfront villas.

For observers of American foreign policy, Trump’s speech at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum was equally consequential. He hailed a "great transformation" in the region that was "not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons, or liberal nonprofits," but rather "by the people of the region themselves." Many are hailing or lamenting this as a radical departure from prior policy, but it is in many respects a return to an older strategy, albeit updated for the information revolution. This policy depended on a different set of calculations than Trump has used so far, however, and it may fail without it.

Since FDR met Ibn Saud in 1945, America’s Middle East policy has focused on maintaining access to energy from the Persian Gulf. To do this, Americans needed a favorable balance of power and reliable suppliers. Now that information technology is revolutionizing economies and societies around the globe, the Trump administration has added a third goal: integrating Gulf Arab investors into the American-led tech ecosystem that will battle China for control of the world’s information networks.

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https://freebeacon.com/columns/trumps-retro-futurist-vision-for-the-middle-east/

[IsailedawayfromFR]

We need ME oil and soon will need their technology boom.

Two good reasons to protect our investment

[The_Reader_David]

We need ME oil and soon will need their technology boom.

Two good reasons to protect our investment

Not so much. Biden put us behind, but if we haven't gone back to being a net energy exporter, we will soon.  I'm also dubious about any technology boom in lands where Sunni Islam is the dominant religion -- the Sunnis killed Islamic science because a rationally comprehensible universe didn't respect to absolute sovereignty of Allah -- any tech boom in the Gulf will be American, European and East-Asian brain-power funded by Arab money, not really their technology boom at all.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Not so much. Biden put us behind, but if we haven't gone back to being a net energy exporter, we will soon.  I'm also dubious about any technology boom in lands where Sunni Islam is the dominant religion -- the Sunnis killed Islamic science because a rationally comprehensible universe didn't respect to absolute sovereignty of Allah -- any tech boom in the Gulf will be American, European and East-Asian brain-power funded by Arab money, not really their technology boom at all.

We have needed and used ME oil for many decades, and that will not change anytime in the foreseeable future.

That is what is important.  We need their oil whether we wish to or not.  It is a fact of our standard of living and the reason we protect our interests there.

Should a tech boom occur, it will simply be another rationale to protect our interests.