00:00U.S. President Donald Trump's first overseas trip of his new administration has taken him to the Middle East,
00:06with Saudi Arabia emerging as the centerpiece of his diplomatic tour.
00:10But what does this signal about America's shifting strategy in a region where U.S. influence has waned in recent years?
00:18The question now, can America effectively reassert itself in the Middle East, or has the strategic landscape permanently shifted?
00:26We speak to Associate Professor Syed Han from Wayne State University.
00:32I think there are several takeaways from President Trump's visit to the Middle East right now.
00:38As you said, this is momentous because it is his first overseas trip in his new term of office,
00:47going to the Middle East and indicating that Saudi Arabia is arguably and presumptively the most important destination.
00:59Usually when a president travels overseas, the first place that he goes gives an indication to what his agenda is,
01:07what his policy ambitions are, but then also, of course, keeping in mind that with this particular president,
01:14his own private and personal ambitions, particularly from a financial and a commercial perspective,
01:21don't ever lag far behind.
01:24And so that is something that we have to also consider.
01:26It seems as though Saudi Arabia is certainly front and foremost for the president in the region as a way to re-engage America in the region,
01:41because it has been seen that the United States has over the past several years really withdrawn from the Middle East,
01:50in part because of the failures of President George W. Bush in his ill-begotten campaign in Iraq,
02:01nation-building, regime change, etc., which proved to be disastrous.
02:07There was, of course, also a chilling of relations under Obama because of Obama's ambivalence
02:15when it came to the overthrow of people like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt during the Arab Spring of 2011,
02:22as well as what seemed to be a carryover both by the first term of President Trump and even of President Biden
02:30of aversion to further military intervention within the region.
02:35Many of these factors then played to allowing other powers to enter the Middle East in an unprecedented way,
02:46particularly Russia and certainly to a large extent China.
02:49This seems to be Trump's effort to reverse that process and re-engage the United States.
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