How Harris, Trump could shape Middle East policy

Escalating wars in the Middle East are not likely to calm before the November election, making the next U.S. president a key figure in efforts to broker peace and reset relations in the region. 

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris agree on some basic goals of U.S. policy in the region – defending Israel and isolating Iran – but often diverge on style and strategy. 

Harris is likely to continue the Biden administration’s push for diplomacy to wind up Israel’s wars against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as sharing her potential predecessor’s vision for a two-state solution that ensures ongoing security for all sides. 

While Trump has earlier displayed a personal grudge against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for recognizing President Biden’s election win in 2020, he regularly boasts about being the most pro-Israel president ever. 

Throughout the campaign, Trump has called for Israel to “finish the job,” signaling a desire to see wars in the Middle East end, while showing little interest in constraints on Netanyahu to mitigate civilian casualties, wide-spread destruction or hindrance of humanitarian aid. 

Harris’s campaign has said she does not support an arms embargo on Israel to rein back it’s wars in the region, however the Biden-Harris administration has threatened to halt some arms shipments over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 

Both candidates have a broader goal of establishing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as part of the Trump-era Abraham Accords, which established relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

With a potential Harris administration, the pathway to normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh is viewed as contingent on Palestinian self-determination, with a visible pathway to a state. And closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia are viewed as a bulwark against Iran – the main backer of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen. 

And while the vice president has said diplomacy is her preferred path to keeping Iran from building a nuclear weapon, she’s said that all options are on the table, in reference to military strikes. Harris has added that she would “never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend American forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.” 

Trump, during his first term in office, took a hard line against Iran and its proxies and is likely to revive that policy if back in office — tightening oil sanctions that critics say have gone unenforced during the Biden administration. 

But Trump has also boasted that he could strike a deal with Iran that is better than the Obama-era nuclear agreement that his administration threw out. In his September speech to a pro-Israel conference, Trump even suggested he could convince Iran to join the Abraham Accords. 

Under a second Trump administration, the former president may be more emboldened to draw down U.S. troops in the Middle East, which he tried to do in his first term, and ramp up military and economic cooperation with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

Although concerns over human rights have been a historic hurdle to closer ties in the region, the Biden administration has played down those concerns in favor of cozier relations with the Saudis and other regional powers – and Harris has not signalled a shift on that front.  

In September, the Biden administration delivered the full amount of military aid to Egypt despite human rights concerns and protests from Democrats in Congress.