Trump and the Multipolar Middle East: Is Washington Unintentionally Creating Space for Its Rivals?

Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 pushed US Middle East policy toward a familiar mixture of pressure, bargaining, and demands for measurable economic returns.

The deeper question, however, is not whether Washington is disappearing from the Middle East. It is not. The more consequential issue is whether the United States can still translate its considerable power into strategic exclusivity.

Regional governments are not simply replacing Washington with Beijing, Moscow, or New Delhi. They are widening their options. In international-relations terms, this is strategic hedging: maintaining important ties with a principal partner while reducing the risks of excessive dependence on any single power.

Transactional diplomacy and the diversification incentive

Trump’s approach follows a clear logic. If the United States supplies security, advanced technology or access to its market, it expects investment, arms purchases and economic concessions in return. The 2025 Gulf tour demonstrated how much commercial activity such diplomacy can generate.

Yet a heavily transactional relationship also creates a counter-incentive. If access to security, technology, or markets appears increasingly conditional and exposed to political changes in Washington, regional governments have a rational reason to develop parallel relationships before they actually need them.

BRICS illustrates this emerging flexibility. Egypt, Iran, and the UAE are established members of the expanded grouping. Saudi Arabia presents a more complicated case. The official BRICS website has listed the Kingdom among its members, while the Saudi Press Agency described Saudi participation in the May 2026 BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting as that of an “invited country”. Reuters has likewise reported that Riyadh had been invited but had not formally completed its accession.

That ambiguity is itself revealing. Riyadh can engage with a major non-Western forum while preserving........

© New Eastern Outlook