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00:06Il posto è stato scritto per Karla Falaptor, un emirati billionari,
00:11on March 5, 2026,
00:13in un'imirato di starte di American e Israeli strikes sull'Iran.
00:17In una direttata adresa a il presidente del presidente,
00:19it reads,
00:20«Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with Iran?»
00:24That post was later deleted.
00:26The United Arab Emirates says it has intercepted three missiles now,
00:29fire from Iran.
00:30The UAE was the most heavily targeted Gulf state during the Iran War,
00:34intercepting nearly 3,000 missiles and drones
00:37and suffering strikes on airports, critical infrastructure and civilian targets.
00:42They had abundance of drones that they could use to target the U.S. by targeting the GCC.
00:48Iran has framed these strikes as retaliation against U.S. assets in the region.
00:53The conflict also put pressure on parts of the UAE's economy.
00:56By the end of March, the country's two primary national stock exchanges
01:00had lost around $120 billion in value since the start of the war.
01:04The FTSE and the Dubai UAE index, that is down 4.3%.
01:09In April 2026, the IMF revised down its growth forecast for Gulf economies, citing the war.
01:15The UAE was still expected to grow, but its 2026 forecast was cut from 5% to 3.1%.
01:22Based on the UAE's 2025 GDP, that is equivalent to roughly $11 billion in lower projected economic output.
01:30This is Iran's way of trying to incentivize, if not bluntly scare, places like the UAE
01:37into pressuring, I think, President Trump into either stopping the strikes or ending things sooner.
01:42Given the economic fallout and the uncertainty the conflict created for one of the region's most important business hubs,
01:49you might expect its relationship with the U.S. to have come under strain.
01:52But the opposite happened.
01:54Abu Dhabi has remained firmly aligned with the United States.
01:57So, as recent deals point towards the UAE and the U.S. strengthening their ties,
02:02what does this deeper partnership mean for defense, investment and power in the Gulf?
02:15To understand why the UAE and the U.S. are moving closer,
02:19you have to look at several parts of the relationship, and the first one is defense.
02:23The war has dramatically accelerated U.S.-UAE defense cooperation.
02:27U.S.-UAE defense ties go way back to the founding of the Emirates,
02:31with diplomatic relations established in the 1970s.
02:34They deepen significantly after the Gulf War,
02:36after which the U.S. led coalition's campaign to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
02:41It was during that period that the UAE granted the U.S. access to Al-Dafra Air Base,
02:46a critical hub for American operations in the region.
02:49The UAE has also fought alongside the U.S. from Afghanistan to Yemen, earning the nickname Little Sparta.
02:55Today, UAE ports host more U.S. Navy ships than any port outside the United States.
03:01In 2024, the White House designated the UAE as a major defense partner of the United States,
03:08a status previously granted only to India.
03:10The designation is designed to deepen military cooperation through joint training, exercises,
03:16and military-to-military collaboration.
03:17Between 1950 and 2023, the U.S. sold more than $33.8 billion in military equipment to the UAE.
03:25From 2016 to 2025, more than $11.3 billion in defense articles were exported from the U.S. to the
03:32UAE
03:33through direct commercial sales.
03:35But since the start of the Iran war, arms sales have accelerated sharply.
03:39Between February and May 2026, the U.S. approved or fast-tracked more than $15 billion in potential defense deals
03:46for the UAE,
03:47equal to nearly half the value of U.S. military equipment the UAE bought between 1950 and 2023.
03:54For the UAE, the U.S. provides a critical security umbrella.
03:58It also gives Abu Dhabi access to the world's most advanced military technologies,
04:03helping it pursue ambitious national goals and maintain a strategic edge,
04:06even over regional competitors like Saudi Arabia.
04:09A lot of the capacity building that helped us fend those attacks came from the U.S.
04:15That is not going to go away.
04:16And I don't think the Iranian pressure on the UAE relationship with Israel has made it less.
04:23Actually, we've seen the Iron Dome deployed.
04:26This was not deployed before the war.
04:28It deployed after the war.
04:29The UAE is one of Israel's closest Arab partners.
04:32It hosts critical U.S. military assets, and it's geographically exposed.
04:36Add to that the concentration of American companies in Dubai,
04:39and the UAE became both a symbolic and a strategic target for Tehran.
04:43Signed in 2020, the Abraham Accords brought the UAE closer to Israel,
04:48one of Washington's key allies in the region.
04:50That added another layer to the UAE's defense relationship with the U.S.,
04:55linking Abu Dhabi more directly to America's regional security network.
04:58It's not a one-way relationship.
05:01For Washington, the UAE is one of its most reliable defense partners in the Gulf,
05:05key to projecting power, securing critical shipping lanes.
05:08The UAE and the U.S. share the same view on Iran's proxies,
05:12which is that it must not be allowed to continue destabilizing the Middle East.
05:15Ultimately, it's a mutually reinforcing partnership.
05:18The UAE gains protection and technology,
05:20while the U.S. gains a capable ally and a strategic foothold in a vital region.
05:25We've seen a lot of drones being thwarted
05:29through a system that was done and developed here in the UAE.
05:32We've also had other partnerships that were developed over years.
05:36Korea is one, Italy is one, and it's also developing.
05:39France is one.
05:40This is a capacity started with the U.S., but I don't think it stopped there.
05:45It just taught us how to work with others better.
05:48Going forward, I'm really watching for whether the UAE and other Gulf countries
05:54really step up their build defense capacity at home.
05:59We've seen the UAE launch a defense trade zone
06:02and really encouraging investments and partnering, yes, with U.S. firms,
06:07but also with Ukrainian firms.
06:09LinkedIn to this has also been UAE greater investments in AI,
06:14not only related to defense, but this is a really important national security area.
06:21If anything, in the context of this conflict, that priority is only going to continue.
06:25Defense is only one part of the UAE-U.S. relationship.
06:29For years, the two countries have been deepening their economic ties
06:32through trade, investment, and increasingly, technology.
06:35The UAE is one of Washington's key economic partners in the Gulf.
06:40In 2024, U.S. foreign direct investment in the UAE stood at around $15 billion.
06:45But UAE foreign direct investment in the U.S. was more than twice as large,
06:49at about $35 billion.
06:52Economic ties between the U.S. and the UAE also deepened significantly
06:56under President Donald Trump.
06:57Bilateral trade reached a record almost $39 billion in 2025.
07:02But trade is only part of the story.
07:04China and India are larger trade partners for the UAE by value.
07:08Where the U.S. relationship stands out is capital,
07:11from sovereign wealth and portfolio exposure to long-term strategic commitments.
07:15UAE investments in the United States exceed $1 trillion,
07:20spanning sectors like infrastructure, technology, energy, and manufacturing.
07:24We're also seeing growth in capital markets,
07:26from sovereign investments into U.S. assets to private credit and infrastructure.
07:31Some of that is in just U.S. equities and U.S. corporate bonds.
07:37But there's a sizable concentration in the energy sector,
07:41including in liquefied natural gas projects.
07:44The UAE obviously is a major energy power of its own right at home.
07:50It's also invested in both oil and gas,
07:54but also renewable energy projects in the United States.
07:57I just see this as being about the need of additional power sources
08:02in this AI-driven world.
08:05We were doing a table of all the capital committed by sovereign wealth funds
08:09into the big three AI companies.
08:12So SpaceX, including XAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
08:17And the reality is that most of the sovereign wealth funds
08:20that have committed capital to these companies
08:23are coming from the Middle East.
08:24In 2025, the UAE committed to a 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework in the U.S.
08:31focused on energy, manufacturing, semiconductors, and AI infrastructure.
08:36The incremental investment pledges look a little optimistic to me.
08:40This is a reflection not just of a security relationship,
08:43but the depth of U.S. capital market and innovation.
08:47It positions the UAE as one of the largest foreign investors in the United States.
08:51More importantly, it marks a shift in the relationship from oil and security
08:55to a strategic partnership built on capital and technology.
08:59These are investments that are focused on having an economic return,
09:03but are linked to domestic economic development.
09:05People have always looked at that long-term relationship
09:09as being based on what is called the Quincy Agreement.
09:13The idea was that U.S. will provide security,
09:17and Saudi Arabia and the whole of the GCC sell oil in dollars.
09:21And I think we are at a point where we need a Quincy II.
09:24In Quincy II, it's not going to be oil that is going to be the major commodity.
09:31The UAE, in wanting to double down on AI development
09:37and the knowledge economy, has chosen the U.S. as the strategic partner there.
09:42To the extent of cutting ties in some data centers with Chinese companies,
09:48Abu Dhabi's plan is to not only develop best-in-class AI tech stack domestically,
09:55but also to export that to African countries, to South Asia.
10:00And so for G42, in order to access the highest-level chips designed by NVIDIA,
10:06they had to promise to not use Huawei or other Chinese technology.
10:10And the war in Iran has not stopped these investments.
10:13In March 2026, UAE ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Aloteiba said the country would stand
10:19by its planned and existing investment pledges in the U.S.
10:22Geopolitical shocks don't change the direction.
10:24If anything, they reinforced the need for economic diversification and technological strength.
10:29U.S. companies, all of them were very quick at the start of the conflict
10:33to express their commitment to the UAE.
10:36But there will be questions depending on how this new normal develops,
10:42but also whether there is a risk of recurrence.
10:45There's also a security logic.
10:47Deepening investment ties with the U.S. helps anchor the UAE
10:50within Washington's economic and strategic orbit.
10:53Avoiding decoupling is very much an underlying goal.
10:56In April 2026, the UAE made an unusual request.
11:00It asked the U.S. about a possible financial backstop.
11:03Many of our Gulf allies have requested swap lines.
11:07The swap line would both benefit the UAE and the U.S.
11:12A currency swap line allows foreign central banks to access U.S. dollars in times of market stress.
11:18In practice, the UAE central bank could exchange Emirati dirhams for dollars from the Federal Reserve,
11:24then provide those dollars to local banks if funding markets came under pressure.
11:28Later, the currencies would be swapped back.
11:31This is a country with some major pools of capital.
11:34Why would they be needing a swap line?
11:36I see the UAE's request for a swap line as being part of signaling their commitment to the U.S.,
11:43the desire for almost the seal of approval that their policies were good,
11:48and I think also a bit of a point of leverage there.
11:51They need liquidity.
11:52So for the UAE, the goal is clear.
11:54Secure access to the world's reserve currency, the U.S. dollar, and strengthen ties with Washington.
11:58For the U.S., it serves a broader objective, maintaining the dominance of the dollar
12:03by keeping key partners like the UAE firmly within its financial orbit.
12:07In the short term, yes, the UAE has gotten closer to the U.S., closer to Israel,
12:13but this really depends on how this war really ends and what sort of new normal develops in the region.
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