Questions remain on the agreements, the Syria sanctions after the trip of Trump in the Middle East

Friday, President Donald Trump ended a four-day trip to the Middle East, going to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

His first major foreign trip to his second term saw the United States obtaining more than $ 2 billions in investment agreements in the Gulf region, according to the White House, as well as Trump announcing that he will move to raise American sanctions in Syria.

Trump also said during the trip he thought that the United States and Tehran “may have been closer to an agreement” on the Iranian nuclear program and called Qatar to use its influence to persuade Iran leaders to reach an agreement with the United States to resume its rapid advance nuclear program.

The trip “creates fairly interesting openings and opportunities”, told ABC New Michael Hanna, director of American program for the International Crisis Group.

“It seems that perhaps the region, led by the Gulf, can have a very important and important contribution in the development of American politics in a better direction,” he said, as moving away from military conflicts with Iran and Houthis and engaging with Syria to stabilize the transition after the Assad family was withdrawn from power.

But, he said, “one of the things that was a huge problem for Trump, traditionally, is implementation and follow-up.”

During Trump’s trip, the United States has obtained more than $ 200 billion in trade agreements with the United Arab Emirates, more than $ 243.5 billion in economic transactions and an economic exchange agreement of $ 1.2 billion with Qatar, and a commitment of $ 600 billion in Saudi Arabia to invest in the United States. Certain transactions have focused on AI infrastructure, energy and defense.

“Increasingly, he is convinced, as a former real estate and businessman promoter, that the continuation of the expansion of the commercial interest of America should be the main activity of the American government, so to speak. And he went there with this mission,” said ABC News Manochr Dorraj, professor of political science at the Texas Christian University. “Insofar as it was a guiding principle, he made significant progress towards achieving this objective.”

But, he noted, “the devil is still in detail.”

“We will see how it would take place in practice,” said Dorraj.

Among his main announcements, Trump said on Tuesday during an opening speech to Riyadh that he would order the cessation of American sanctions against Syria, which has been designated sponsor of state of terrorism by the American government since 1979, “in order to give them a chance of magnitude”.

After this announcement, there are “many major question points” in terms of implementation and follow -up, said Hanna.

“Some of these things he can do with a pen,” said Hanna, while noting that he is not clear how his administration or congress will react.

“It was quite clear that it happens, so I will look strongly how first, [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio takes care of this because he can raise some of these sanctions with a pen, “said Hanna.” There are other major problems with sectoral sanctions and the César law. “”

“There is a lot to be cheated,” he said.

Asked about the calendar on the lifting of sanctions during the remarks in Turkey on Thursday, Rubio said: “I was with the president when he made the decision to do so and included it in his speech. So we did preparatory work in this regard.”

He said Trump intended to use the renunciation authorities under the Caesar law, which must be renewed every 180 days.

“In the end, if we make enough progress, we would like to see the law repealed because you are going to have trouble finding people to invest in a country when they are in six months, sanctions could return,” said Rubio. “We are not yet there. It is premature. I think we want to start with the initial renunciation, which will allow foreign partners who wanted to sink into the aid to start doing it without running the risk of sanctions. I think we are progressing, I hope that we will be in a position soon or one day, to go to Congress and ask them to permanent sanctions permanent.”

While negotiations are continuing on the Iranian nuclear program, Hanna noted the technical and diplomatic efforts which were devoted to the negotiations on the full joint action plan – the Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015 that the Obama administration accepted, but that Trump withdrew the United States of three years later.

“These negotiations were very technical, very detailed, very long. And this is not how Trump likes to operate, or [U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve] Witkoff, right? These are not the guys details. They are the overview of the agreement, “he said.

He added: “But for something like a nuclear agreement with Iran, there are a lot of things necessary to make a real agreement, and this requires a lot of technical and diplomatic capacities. And if we arrive at this stage, it would really be a big challenge – even if everyone has obtained the same page – to transform an agreement in principle in agreement on paper.”

Dorraj said Trump’s transactional foreign policy can be an asset in the short term, but “the disadvantage is that there is no long -term strategy”.

“These are rapid initiatives,” he said. “The pragmatic part of it -” let’s see what works. Let’s see what will bring us to the agreement we want. We will learn as you go, and we will adopt and we will adjust if necessary. “Okay, it can be an asset.