Opinion | Gulf states are playing the long game between the US and China

Following US President Donald Trump’s high-stakes tour of the Persian Gulf – his first official foreign visit – the geopolitical chessboard of the Middle East is being redrawn. For China, a key player in the region’s economic and strategic landscape, the implications are impossible to ignore.

The multitrillion-dollar deals signed during his visit – spanning artificial intelligence, technology and finance – signal more than just lucrative contracts for American firms. They mark a deliberate pivot by Gulf states to deepen ties with a potentially resurgent US economy.

This realignment carries risks for Beijing. China has spent years cultivating the Gulf as a critical partner for energy imports, infrastructure projects and its Belt and Road Initiative. Yet Trump’s laser focus on redirecting Gulf capital into US markets, bolstered by dozens of corporate leaders, threatens to squeeze China’s access to the petrodollar pipeline that Beijing hopes will help fuel its economic revival.

Trump’s most audacious move, however, came not only for Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha but Damascus. The lifting of sanctions on Syria, advocated by its recent regional allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, signals a strategic realignment.

By lifting sanctions and holding a 33-minute meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, an arguable snub to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump is upending Washington’s traditional Middle East playbook.