Trump cabinet meeting
President Donald Trump has left the U.S. backed into a corner, according to a new breakdown from The Hill, as the Gulf states see increasingly little value in the country as an ally and move to end the era of "blank-check cooperation" that made them into "immovable pillars of American power in the Middle East."
Brahma Chellaney is an Indian geostrategist, author and a one-time member of India's National Security Advisory Board. On Thursday, he published a new column for The Hill explaining the major "shift" underway in the American power dynamic in the Middle East, as the powerful Gulf petro-states are starting to reassess their longstanding relationship with the U.S. This change was already underway, he noted that "Trump’s Iran war has accelerated this reassessment dramatically," as the partnership made them a target for Iran's retaliatory strikes.
"The Gulf states discovered that supporting American military operations carried potentially catastrophic costs for them, as their energy facilities and desalination plants became targets of Iranian reprisals," Chellaney wrote. "Gulf rulers watched as the U.S. deployed enormous military resources (including Aegis-equipped destroyers and advanced interceptors) to shield Israel from Iranian retaliation while Gulf states absorbed the payback for enabling American strikes."
He concluded: "That experience appears to have fundamentally altered their calculations."
The breakdown in this relationship could be seen in the swift collapse of "Project Freedom," the initiative in which the U.S. meant to safely escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf states saw this plan as a "potential disaster," leading Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to deny the U.S. access to their "airspace and bases to support the operation."
"Without Gulf cooperation, the mission quickly became logistically and politically unsustainable. Trump abruptly suspended it after just two escorted U.S.-flagged vessels passed through the strait," Chellaney explained. "In effect, Gulf states vetoed a major American military initiative — something that would have been almost unthinkable only a year ago. Only after Trump paused the operation did Gulf governments restore U.S. access to basing and overflight rights, underscoring that such cooperation is no longer automatic but conditional."
The Gulf states now increasingly believe that they are being treated as "platforms for American power, not equal partners in American protection," bringing an end to the era when the U.S. believed that their resources were "essentially available on demand during crises in return for American military protection." In essence, Chellaney argued, they are meeting Trump's "America First" agenda with a new "Gulf First" mindset.
"The Gulf monarchies are not abandoning the U.S., but they are redefining the relationship on narrower terms," Chellaney surmised. "The age of blank-check cooperation is over. Gulf allies are no longer willing to be the lightning rods for U.S. military campaigns while relying on uncertain protection when retaliation arrives. And once allies learn they can say 'no' to Washington, they rarely return to automatic obedience."