Energy And Commerce Will Drive Trump’s New Middle East Doctrine

President Donald Trump rolled out a new American doctrine as it applies to relations with Arab nations in the Middle East during his trip to the region last week. The President laid out this new doctrine in a series of speeches and meetings, most specifically during his speech in Saudi Arabia, at the same time announcing an array of commercial and energy deals designed to help bring it to reality.

The deals will be massive if all the fine print surrounding them comes to fruition. The doctrine would result in what could be accurately called a new energy and commerce-based order for the region. Taken together, the deals and doctrine would result in the “drill, baby, drill” ethos and increased oil production reality Trump has long desired, but on an international basis rather than domestically.

The Doctrine’s Deals

Trump’s whirlwind four-day trip made stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Included were an array of economic agreements and corporate pledges announced at every stop, with the energy-related commitments assuming key roles.

Altogether, the White House touted over $2 trillion in investment pledges, a chunk of which targets America’s energy sector, from oil and gas, to nuclear energy, to LNG exports, to AI-driven infrastructure. The aspirational numbers are dazzling but many details are undefined, with much left to be decided down the road in a world fraught with geopolitical and economic impediments.

In Saudi Arabia, the topline was a $600 billion investment pledge over four years, with energy as a key pillar. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman committed to deepening nuclear cooperation, in line with the Kingdom’s ambition for a civilian nuclear program. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who visited Riyadh in April, told Al Arabiyah on Sunday that a U.S./Saudi deal related to critical energy minerals and a nuclear pathway would likely be concluded in a matter of months.

The deal also includes $142 billion in Saudi arms purchases, a facet that is itself indirectly tied to energy security, as Saudi seeks to protect its oil infrastructure. As he consistently does in talks with Saudi Arabia, the Trump also pressed for more Saudi oil production in pursuit of his goal to cut global oil prices, and urged bin Salman to consider locking in long-term deals to import U.S. LNG.

America’s competition for prominence with Qatar in the LNG exports sector works to preclude major deals in that area. Still, energy considerations played a role in the massive $1.2 trillion “economic exchange” the White House announced during his visit there.

Like Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s economic and national security is heavily dependent on the preservation of the country’s energy security. Regular infusions of U.S. military hardware and ongoing cooperation with U.S. security priorities play a key role in that area. During Trump’s visit, Qatar announced a pledge to invest $10 billion in upgrades to Al Udeid Air Base, which serves as a regional hub for U.S. operations.

The White House says Trump also secured a $2 billion deal for Qatari purchase of MQ-9 Reaper Drones and signed a statement of intent with his Qatari counterpart which outlines over $38 billion in “potential investments” which the White House says include “support for burden-sharing at Al Udeid Air Base and future defense capabilities related to air defense and maritime security.”

The UAE delivered the most tangible energy commitments. Trump announced $200 billion in deals, including a $14.5 billion Etihad Airways investment in 28 Boeing aircraft powered by GE Aerospace engines, a win for U.S. energy-adjacent industries. The UAE’s $1.4 trillion, 10-year investment framework, announced in March, emphasizes energy infrastructure, particularly for AI data centers. As part of that project, the White House announced a U.S.-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership to create a 5GW AI campus, which it says will be largest outside the U.S.

Taken together, these commercial and energy-related commitments form a firm foundation to support the implementation of Trump’s revised strategic approach to the region.

The Trump Doctrine Strategy

This is where the dealmaking feeds into a comprehensive strategy backed by American energy and economic might, and a presidential exercise of geopolitical leverage. In his speech in Riyadh, President Trump discarded the neoconservative, morality-based, nation building approach which led to the creation during the George W. Bush years of disastrous, seemingly interminable wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In the end,” Trump said, “the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

In place of the neo-con vision for the Middle East, Trump laid out a vision that discards fights over morality and religious differences, replaced by a vision grounded in commerce and energy. All of it revolves around Trump’s revised goals related to the enhancement of American energy security.

Gone is any mention of Trump’s first term talk about U.S. energy independence, led by a “drill, baby, drill” philosophy based almost solely in expansion of oil and gas production. Faced this time with the reality that all of the big U.S. shale plays have now moved into the development and maintenance phase of their lifespans, Trump and his senior officials understand there can be no repeat of that first-term focus.

Writing in his Substack newsletter, respected energy analyst David Ramsden-Wood put it this way: “Forget the old narrative that the U.S. wants ‘energy independence.’ That’s not the possible anymore. The U.S. has peaked in onshore shale growth—and Biden’s domestic hostility to oil has enabled Trump to step into the void. So now? We export our expertise. We lock up acreage in the Middle East. We build deeper ties with UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—and we do it through private-sector partnerships.”

The changed realities in the U.S. and global energy sector dictated that this second Trump presidency revise its focus on a different set of priorities. What emerged this past week is a more fully integrated view of the global energy picture in which most of the drilling takes place in the Middle East and other hot spots like West Africa, Guyana and Brazil, supported with U.S. technology, exports, and infrastructure.

This doctrine helps explain the administration’s hyper-focus on speeding the expansion and modernization of domestic energy infrastructure, along with AI and other emerging technologies that will power it into the future. Many of the commitments announced this week with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE tie directly into these central facets of this new Trump Doctrine.

The Bottom Line

So, while the rest of the world will “drill, baby, drill,” America will “build, baby, build,” and “innovate, baby, innovate,” exporting the end products and technologies to help enable those other countries to get the job done, grow their own economies, and protect their own energy security.

It’s a Doctrine grounded in commerce, fueled by cheaper, more reliable energy, and focused less on preferred narratives and more on the realities of the world as it currently exists. If successful, it will be truly revolutionary, but the details and the fine print left undecided will tell that story. For now, there is good reason for a level of optimism that has been missing for quite some time.