Zineb Riboua
President Donald Trump’s arrival in Riyadh at the outset of his broader Gulf tour signals a calculated attempt to reassert American power in a region where the United States’ retrenchment has reduced its influence. Over the past decade, China has exploited this political and strategic vacuum to expand its presence across the Middle East. By enmeshing itself into the Gulf’s infrastructural, financial, and technological development, Beijing has steadily tilted the regional balance in its favor. Trump’s visit is the first direct attempt to halt China’s momentum and reestablish the United States as the principal outside power shaping the future of the Gulf.
The stakes of Trump’s visit are high. While the US narrowed its military footprint and deprioritized the region in its diplomatic strategy, Beijing quietly deepened its Gulf relationships. For example, it brokered the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March 2023. China is investing heavily in the Middle East because Beijing sees the region as an integral—not secondary—theater in its strategy for displacing US influence and reshaping global power dynamics. In particular, the region gives Beijing different options for challenging American dominance. Five factors drive this calculus.
First, the Gulf could provide the energy China needs to sustain its industrial economy. Producers in the region supply nearly half of China’s crude imports, and Beijing views long-term energy security as essential to regime stability.
Second, the Middle East serves as a geopolitical corridor linking East Asia to Europe and Africa. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has prioritized ports, logistics corridors, and commercial access points throughout the Gulf, which give Beijing leverage over key maritime and overland trade routes. More importantly, the Digital Silk Road, the technology pillar of the BRI, is projected to contribute up to $255 billion to the gross domestic product of Gulf Cooperation Council countries and generate 600,000 tech-sector jobs by 2030.
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