How Donald Trump Could Seek To Reshape Major Policy Win in His Second Term

The Abraham Accords, brokered by President-elect Donald Trump during his first time in office, were his administration’s crowning achievement.

As the Republican sweeps back into the Oval Office, expanding these agreements is likely to be a top of their to-do list in the Middle East.

The Abraham Accords were landmark agreements that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Morocco then signed, and agreements were later reached with Sudan.

The big prize this time round for Trump’s team would be finally securing a long-sought-after normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.

“This is definitely the Trump agenda,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with the influential Chatham House think tank in London.

Trump officials have already indicated their intentions. Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, said earlier this week that the new administration will press for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, describing the elusive agreement as a “huge priority” for incoming U.S. officials.

It would be a “tremendous historic region-changing agreement,” he said. Waltz has previously described a normalization deal as a “natural next step” to the Abraham Accords.

A deal with Riyadh would have “huge benefits” for Israel, said Alex Mintz, founder of Israeli artificial intelligence company, DecisionAdvantage.ai, specializing in national security, and a senior professor at Israel’s Reichman University. “The peace dividend will be substantial for Israel, militarily, economically and diplomatically,” Mintz told Newsweek.

Trump is in a prime position to execute this, too. It was his influence that finally pushed through a first-stage ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, which took effect today after a near-three-hour wobble.

“The Arab world has reacted favorably to the deal, and recognized Trump as the lever that made this happen,” said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.

“Saudi Arabia will likely now have more flexibility now to engage with the U.S. on the Abraham Accords, or some kind of security arrangement, that will expand the spirit of the accords,” Ozcelik told Newsweek.

“This will be welcomed by Saudi Arabia, as the ceasefire was long expressed as a precondition for dialogue, along with a viable pathway for Palestinian statehood,” Ozcelik added. “There is now clearly progress in that progress, even if it is fragile.”

Also battling for dominance on Trump’s agenda is a game plan on how to approach Iran. Tehran has consistently opposed the Abraham Accords, concerned with Israel and the U.S.’s influence in the Gulf States, not to mention the green light an agreement with Riyadh could send to other Arab and Islamic countries. Achieving something that would put Iran at a further disadvantage, therefore, could be very appealing to the incoming U.S. officials.

Saudi Arabia “gave tacit approval to the Gulf States about the Abraham Accords, but it was based on its rivalry with Iran,” said Ruthie Blum, a former adviser to Netanyahu’s office.

Israel’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, told Newsweek he was hopeful for a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia when speaking in Jerusalem last month.

There is a “very good level of understanding” that will settle in between the new administration and Israel’s leadership, including a personal relationship between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sa’ar said.

Trump could submit a new initiative that includes normalization with Saudi Arabia, “a regional moderate anti-Iranian coalition, and a pathway for the Palestinians, as part of a regional deal,” in the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas, Lianne Pollak-David told Newsweek. She is a former senior member of Israel’s national security cabinet who has been part of Israeli negotiating teams with Palestinian officials.

But there are roadblocks ahead. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and prime minister, Mohammed bin Salman, has laid down Palestinian rights and a road map to a Palestinian state as a condition of normalization. However, while bin Salman told Fox News in September 2023 that Riyadh hoped to “reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians and get Israel as a player in the Middle East,” he did not reiterate that Palestinian statehood was a dealbreaker.

Palestinian statehood remains very difficult question for Israel to answer, pushed further away by the October 7 attacks and 15 months of brutal war in Gaza against Palestinian militant group Hamas. Also complicating the mix is violence between an increasing number of Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, as well as raids by both Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority, which has a somewhat-weak grip on the larger of the two Palestinian territories.

Senior figures like Sa’ar himself have vocally opposed Palestinian statehood.

To push through normalization, “I think everyone recognizes that the Palestinian issue shouldn’t be left behind,” Mekelberg told Newsweek. “So there must be progress on this.” Without a two-state solution, it is very difficult for other countries in the region to normalize relations with Israel off the back of the destruction in Gaza, Mekelberg said.

Just weeks before Hamas’ unprecedented attacks last October, Netanyahu said it was “likely” that Israel would reach a normalization agreement with Riyadh.

One way around now could be for Riyadh to ink a deal, while saying it is necessary to stop Israel from annexing the West Bank with Trump’s blessing, added Mintz. Trump’s team could also make promises to Riyadh directly over Palestinian statehood, he said.

The “main obstacle is the current Israeli government,” said Pollak-David, who is a founding member of the Coalition for Regional Security, an Israeli collective arguing for expanded ties between Israel and countries like Saudi Arabia. “This is going to be the next major political crisis; Netanyahu will have to make a choice whether he prefers the alliance with his extreme government coalition partners or his alliance with Trump, and the entire moderate Middle East,” Pollak-David added.

The political landscape in Israel is constantly in flux. Although several figures opposing Palestinian statehood on the country’s right wing, three members of Israel’s ultranationalist Jewish Power in the cabinet resigned on Sunday as the U.S., Qatar and Egypt-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas came into effect.

The nuclear question could trip up talks, too. There are some concerns in Israeli defense circles about Saudi Arabia’s access to nuclear power for peaceful purposes, said Mintz.

“I’m sure it is of concern,” Blum added to Newsweek.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, said in recent days that Riyadh plans to enrich and sell uranium.

Once uranium is successfully enriched, it can be used to make nuclear weapons relatively quickly. The crown prince has said in previous years that the kingdom would move to develop nuclear weapons if Iran gained them.

There is significant concern in Israel that Tehran could take this step after Israeli forces wrought significant damage on Lebanon-based militant and political force Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are backed by Iran. Israel has also directly struck Iranian sites in recent months, including at least one part of Iran’s nuclear program and its air defenses.

Iran says its nuclear development, which had been curbed by now-lapsed restrictions, is peaceful and not intended to make weapons. But Iranian officials have started to publicly float whether Tehran should abandon this track, and analysts say it would not be difficult for Iran to take the final step toward a weaponized nuclear program.