Trump shores up relations with other regional allies as ties with Netanyahu sour

As daylight appears between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, the latter has bolstered his relationships with other regional allies to boost the U.S. stance in the region.

Trump’s foreign policy in his second term has been characterized by his shoring up of relationships with Muslim partners in the Middle East, often over the objections of Israel. This pattern has been supercharged after the beginning of the war with Iran, especially after Washington’s public objectives began publicly diverging from those of Jerusalem. Trump has continued his boosting of ties with states against Israeli interests, such as Turkey, Syria, and Qatar, at the expense of Israel.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets President Donald Trump during the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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Trump’s increased preference for relying on these powers has been illustrated over the past few weeks, as he’s openly rewarded them for perceived loyalty.

Some analysts caution that his recent moves may not necessarily constitute a planned strategy to diversify the U.S.’s Middle East strategy away from Israel. Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that she doesn’t see Trump’s recent overtures toward Turkey, Syria, and other regional powers as part of a power-balancing act in the region at all.

“I think this is very consistent with his behavior,” she said. “Now, that doesn’t mean he’s not mad at Netanyahu because, of course, he is mad at Netanyahu. I don’t think he thinks that way.”

“He’s not a guy who … is shoring up alliances and figuring out how to play,” Pletka said. “He’s marching forward based on his instincts and the instincts of the people who he, for good or ill, trusts.”

HOW TURKEY CAME TO POSITION ITSELF AS A DOMINANT POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND BEYOND

Turkey

Turkey is perhaps the most noticeable instance where Trump has publicly pivoted toward them over the objections of Israel and a country that exerts the most direct influence in the region.

The past 20 years have seen Turkey reassert itself to an extent not seen since its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, dominated the entire Middle East. It combined its strong military, impressive defense industry, willingness to deploy its forces abroad, and growing soft power to help shape the modern Middle East.

This rise has been picked up by, and pushed along by, Trump and his administration, with Special U.S. Envoy Tom Barack becoming Turkey’s most vocal advocate.

The Ankara NATO summit saw a major breakthrough in U.S.-Turkey relations, after Trump, sitting next to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, floated giving Ankara the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, arguably the most advanced fighter in the world. Trump touted what a good ally Turkey had been in floating the decision, saying he “was considering how good an ally President Tayyip Erdoğan had been.”

Netanyahu openly decried the possibility on Tuesday, saying that it “would destroy the power balance in the Middle East, because … Turkey, I think, has aggressive aspirations.”

Trump was obviously aware of the dichotomy while discussing the matter, saying, “I love Bibi. He is a great prime minister. But Bibi said some harsh things yesterday about Turkey and about Erdogan.”

Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that operates the F-35, which grants it effective air supremacy over the entire region. If Turkey were to acquire the aircraft, Israel would no longer be the aerial hegemon in the Middle East, made worse by Turkey’s hostile stance toward Israel.

In a more concrete stance preferable to Turkey, Trump announced he would be removing the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which leveled defense sanctions against Turkey after it bought Russia’s S-400 air defense system.

In Syria, Trump has openly chosen Turkey’s path over Israel, choosing to support the pro-Turkish government of Ahmed al Sharaa over Jerusalem’s preference of checking its power. Washington and Jerusalem clashed openly last year when Israel launched strikes against Damascus to protect the Druze in the south, with Washington pressuring Israel to cease its attacks.

The president has long had positive words for Erdogan, but his liberal praise for him right after Netanyahu decried him for allegedly supporting terrorism and being hostile to Israel and the United States can be interpreted as a swipe at the Israeli leader.

“I want to thank President Erdogan, who’s really a great man,” Trump said. “He’s a great leader. He’s a friend of mine, been a friend of mine for a long time. He’s a strong person, a very strong personality, and that’s why he runs such a successful and good country.”

The Gulf States

The Gulf States have played as central a role as ever in Trump’s Middle East strategy, with the president boosting their profile even further than in previous years. Despite the diverging interests of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia often escalating into hostility, Trump has praised them all liberally as trustworthy allies and fighters.

In an April 17 post, he praised them all together, saying, “Thank you to Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar for your great bravery and help!”

The three countries were reportedly all fully in favor of the April ceasefire, including the usually hawkish UAE. Their aim to end the war and maintain the ceasefire was directly against Israel’s view, but Trump heeded their preference over Jerusalem.

The desire for a ceasefire is nearly the only thing the three powers find themselves aligned on. Pletka cautioned against lumping the three into a single power bloc as “the Gulf States.”

“These are real countries, and they have different interests, and they have different ambitions, and they have different ways of dealing with the world,” she said, though she added that their enmities are often transient. “So no, I don’t think it’s fair at all to lump them into one block.”

Qatar, Pletka argued, has invested in Washington to the extent that it arguably holds more influence than any other in the Middle East.

“You can’t spend more than the Qataris have spent. I think that they spend more than all of the remaining foreign powers combined in Washington on influence operations. They are everywhere,” she said, adding that the “only place where, thus far, I have not seen their influence is the Supreme Court.”

This influence has helped put them at the center of negotiations with Iran, a mediating role Doha has come to master in the eyes of Washington. Israel is highly wary of Qatar, constantly warning of its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and perceived benign influence.

Syria

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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Syria, having just emerged from a civil war that killed over 600,000 of its people and sent millions more fleeing, is the least powerful and least threatening country on the list, but Trump’s favorability toward the country is particularly notable as it comes over Israeli objections.

Trump took office just over a month after al Sharaa overthrew the government of Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive, presenting him with a conundrum. Ultimately, Trump decided to gamble on the former ISIS lieutenant, who had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head up until last year. Barack has led the way in helping to lift sanctions and boost investment, hoping to give the U.S. a positive role in building the new Syria.

Trump’s recent moves have gone beyond just helping Syria to rebuild, however, going so far as to promote Syrian power projection beyond its own borders, again to the detriment of Israel.

Beginning in mid-June, Trump started publicly suggesting that Israel should let Syria “deal with Hezbollah,” arguing that Sharaa’s government would do a “better job.” The Assad regime had intervened several times in Lebanon’s Civil War, and the war only ended when Syria occupied the country. The decadelong occupation gave some stability, but also sowed discontent, and Damascus was eventually forced to withdraw, hated by the Lebanese populace and under international criticism.

Trump’s suggestion to have Syria return to its old position as Lebanon’s handler came as a surprise to many, including the Syrians themselves. In a Wednesday briefing, Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and the director of its Syria Initiative, said the proposition was as unpopular in Damascus as in Israel.

“Damascus is in a very difficult position,” he said. “I mean, let’s state it as bluntly as possible: The idea that Syria could or should militarily intervene in Lebanon is an absolute nonstarter in Damascus.

“There is zero interest in doing this, zero interest in the military, zero interest in the security and intelligence apparatus, and zero interest in the presidency and the foreign ministry,” Lister said. “This is still a country that can barely pay its own public sector salaries. This is not a country that is prepared to go across a nation-state border, and particularly one with such complexity and sensitivity as Lebanon.”

Despite Syria’s lack of interest, Trump’s effort to return Syria to a position of regional power, at the expense of Israel, shows his increasing reliance on other powers over the U.S.’s long-standing ally.

Pletka, consistent with her thesis about key figures in the administration driving Trump’s policy in the Middle East, argued that the Syrian approach was fully the doing of Barack.

“This is how weird countries pop up,” she said. “This is how the president of the United States met with somebody who, until not much more than a year ago, was the head of an al Qaeda-affiliated organization. It wasn’t because Donald Trump was thinking, ‘Oh, I trust him.’ He was going with Tom Barrack, saying, ‘This is a great move, just do this, Donald,’ and he did it.”

Egypt

Egypt, despite flying under many radars due to its lack of military involvement since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, is one of the most sizable powers in the Middle East. In terms of soldiers fielded, it has the largest military in the Middle East, and it stands as another case of Trump’s personal approach to diplomacy reaping dividends.

Speaking next to President Abdel Fatah el Sisi at the June 17 G7 Summit, Trump recalled his first meeting with el Sisi during his 2016 campaign, saying the two met “in a hotel, and I met him, and we fell in love. Deeply in love.”

Though Pakistan held a foremost meeting role in the war with Iran, Egypt snagged a junior negotiating position. The diplomatic boost and attention from the U.S., Pletka said, was “much more a product of the Iran war.”

“These are the guys who were brought in as kibitzers by the Saudis, in particular,” she said. “Where did the whole Pakistan middleman come from? Pakistan isn’t even in the Middle East, right? So I think that’s much more a card that was forced upon him, and that he welcomed, by his chosen envoys.”

Trump has rewarded Egypt’s diplomatic support with a renewed initiative to resolve the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile River, saying it was causing “tremendous problems for Egypt.”

“We’ll be discussing the Nile because the Nile is getting a little emptier than it should be, and that’s what we’re here to talk about,” Trump said.

EGYPT UNVEILS MASSIVE ‘OCTAGON’ DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS, 39 TIMES BIGGER THAN PENTAGON

The U.S. also didn’t protest when Egypt unveiled its massive State Strategic Command Center, a sprawling complex in the desert east of Cairo meant to serve as the new headquarters of the Egyptian Ministry of Defense, dubbed the “Octagon.” The complex is 39 times the size of the Pentagon.

El Sisi even thanked Trump during the unveiling ceremony for the complex, hailing his diplomatic efforts, which “resulted in the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement to end the war in Gaza, and his subsequent success in reaching an agreement to end the war with Iran.”