Maria Papageorgiou
A street decorated with the flags of Saudi Arabia and the US ahead of Trump’s visit. Photo: Ali Haider / EPA via The Conversation
US President Donald Trump claimed he was able to secure deals totaling more than US$2 trillion for the US during his May tour of the Gulf states. Trump said, “there has never been anything like” the amount of jobs and money these agreements will bring to the US.
However, providing a lift for the US economy wasn’t the only thing on Trump’s mind. China’s influence in the wider Middle East region is growing fast – so much so that it was even able to mediate a detente between bitter regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023.
Trump’s attempt to strengthen ties with countries in the Middle East is probably also a deliberate attempt to contain China’s growing regional ambitions.
China has spent the past two decades building up its economic and political relations with the Middle East. In 2020, it replaced the EU as the largest trading partner to the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Bilateral trade between them was valued at over $161 billion.
The Middle East has also become an important partner to China’s sprawling Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Massive infrastructure projects in the region, such as high-speed railway lines in Saudi Arabia, have provided lucrative opportunities for Chinese companies.
The total value of Chinese construction and investment deals in the Middle East reached $39 billion in 2024, the most of any region in the world. That year, the three countries with the highest volume of BRI-related construction contracts and investment were all in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the UAE.a
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