Ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, the Atlantic Council held a press call on May 9, where experts discussed what to expect from the president’s first major trip abroad during his second administration. Below is a transcript of the conversation, moderated by Atlantic Council Senior Editorial Director Uri Friedman.

Speakers

William F. Wechsler

Senior Director, Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs, Atlantic Council

Amb. Nathan A. Sales

Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Programs, Atlantic Council

Amb. Daniel B. Shapiro

Distinguished Fellow, Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, Middle East Programs, Atlantic Council

Racha Helwa

Director, empowerME Initiative, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council

R. Clarke Cooper

Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Programs, Atlantic Council

Jonathan Panikoff

Director, Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, Middle East Programs, Atlantic Council

Transcript

Uncorrected, automated transcript

URI FRIEDMAN: Welcome, everyone. We’re so glad you, you were able to join us today for this call on President Trump’s upcoming trip to the Middle East. As Emily mentioned, I’m the senior editorial director at the Atlantic Council, and I’ll be your moderator today. And just reiterating what Emily mentioned about this being on the record and we’ll send a transcript afterwards.

So I just want to give you a quick road map of the agenda and then we’ll jump in. We’re going to go to our speakers first for opening remarks and then I’ll ask some follow-up questions, but I also really want this to be a free flowing conversation with all of you, you know, I want this to be a briefing as President Trump heads to the region and also a chance for you all, I’m sure you have questions you’re thinking about as you’re working on your coverage and we want to make sure you get those answered by the wonderful experts we’ve assembled here.

So while I’ll devote some time at the end, last fifteen minutes or so for you to ask any questions you have, really feel free to jump in at any point in this, you know, if you hear something that triggers a question, jump in, you can either put your question in the chat and I can ask it, or you can raise your hand, and we’ll go to you for the question. Um, and you can direct questions to particular experts or direct it to the group and see who wants to jump in.

And to briefly frame our conversation today, you know, I think you’re all aware, but this is President Trump’s first major foreign trip of his second term, and similar to his first term, he is headed next week to the Middle East. He’ll be in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and it’ll include a summit of Gulf Cooperation Council leaders in Riyadh. And he’ll be there at a really consequential moment, you know, with trade wars, the war in Gaza, nuclear talks with Iran, and Arab Israeli normalization all in play. And that’s why Racha Halwa, one of the Atlantic Council experts joining us today, wrote in a scene setting article for our site just yesterday that his visit and its outcomes, you know, have the potential to quote reshape the United States’ engagement in the Middle East.

So, with that as background, I want to introduce our experts. I’ll do a brief introductions, and then we’ll go right to them. So first, William Wechsler is the senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism.

Ambassador Nathan Sales is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and a former US ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and as the US Ambassador to Israel.

Dr. Racha Helwa is the director of the empowerMe Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and an economist who has worked across the private sector, government, and academia. Clarke Cooper is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and previously served as US Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs, and Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and previously served as the deputy national intelligence officer for the near east at the National Intelligence Council.

So it’s a full house, amazing experts with exactly the kind of expertise that will help you all in your coverage of this, of this really important visit. So with that, I want to start with you, Will. Like, set the scene for us. What are you thinking as President Trump prepares to embark on this trip?

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Sure, I’m just, just briefly, of course, this trip comes at a particularly critical time for the Middle East with negotiations with Iran, on their nuclear program and their wider malign activities potentially going down to the wire happening on Sunday just before—before Donald Trump arrives into the region; negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza or the next phase of the war in Gaza also going down to the wire; continued challenges and instability in Lebanon and in Syria and Iraq and in Yemen, and given all of that, this trip’s itinerary very much accurately reflects President Trump’s priorities as I see it.

And it’s important to recognize that the main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the governments of the Gulf, at least those governments with abundant financial resources, are in fact stronger friends to President Trump than is the current government of Israel at this moment.

And of course, as compared to eight years ago, when Donald Trump also took his first foreign trip to the region, Israel is not on the agenda for this trip. And there have been a series of subjects in the last just a few weeks that have demonstrated very publicly the divisions between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu was embarrassed by Trump on tariffs—on the subject of tariffs—twice, both before and, in fact, during his Oval Office visit.

The Iran negotiations that Steve Whitkoff are leading are not going in the direction that Israel will want. Israel has been public about their frustration that they learned about President Trump’s recent decisions to suspend military actions against the Houthis, they learned it in the press and not with the close negotiation and close coordination that they’re used to receiving from the United States, and then most recently, news that President Trump is interested in doing a deal with Riyadh on defense relationship without including, as a condition to that, a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

So those, that’s a series of places where the Trump administration has distanced itself from Israel’s preferences in ways that have to be taken loud and clear by people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

What I’m looking for on the trip before I turn to everyone else is, there is both from Washington and from every Capitol, there’s been a big stress that the overall focus on each stop is bilateral, commercial deals, that’s what people want the stories to be coming out of this, but not withstanding there’s a possibility that we may have before the trip, a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and if not, then one of the key stories on every stop is going to be the plan, Israel’s planned operations in Gaza, potential as the finance minister said publicly in Israel for a permanent occupation, the humanitarian challenges, and potential challenges then that will come in the West Bank, which will even further deepen the divisions between Israel and the Trump administration.

The other thing we’re looking for, of course, is a deal with Iran. It’s looking, in one of the great ironies of all time, that that the current track for negotiations are really JCPOA renewal or JCPOA minus even, and then potentially that Saudi defense agreement, as we discussed. So those that’s the scene setters that I wanted to talk about before handing it on. I think we’re going to—to Nathan next.

URI FRIEDMAN:Yep. Over to you, Ambassador Sales.

NATHAN SALES: Thanks, Uri and thanks everybody for being here. Let me say a few words about Iran. I think the—the Iran talks are going to be the elephant in the room during the entire trip. Yeah, it’s about commerce, but the Iran issue is never going to be far from the surface.

So I think Iran, let me just set the stage here, I think there are two critical questions that we don’t have great clarity about, and that I suspect our Gulf partners are going to press the administration for more clarity on.

The first issue is what would a nuclear deal look like? Would the administration accept a deal that allows for some domestic enrichments or would the administration insist, excuse me, would the administration insist on complete dismantling of Iran’s domestic enrichment capabilities on the theory that, well, twenty-three other countries with civilian nuclear programs have found a way to source the uranium they need on the international market and, you know, what, what’s good for Canada is good for Iran too.

So that’s one question, um, and then I think the second question that’s really critical is, would the administration accept an agreement that is limited specifically to the nuclear file or will the administration insist on also addressing Iran’s support for regional terrorism, for instance it’s ballistic missile program and various other forms of maligned behavior with which the region is unfortunately all too well acquainted?

This isn’t a prediction, but my suspicion is that the answer to both of those questions is going to align more with where the administration was on these questions during the first term than we’ve heard from some commentary both inside the administration recently and from some allies outside the administration.

I think that’s so for a couple of reasons: one is the simple legislative realities that the administration would face trying to get Congress to approve, whether through the Iran Review Act or through the treaty process, some kind of deal. I—I simply don’t think the votes are going to be there for a JCPOA 2.0, and I—I also think on a related note, that would be politically difficult for President Trump to sign off on a deal that would resemble, or even be a watered down version of what President Obama agreed to during his second term. President Trump came to power as the anti-Obama. He is president in large part because of his criticism of Obama foreign policy and various other measures. That doesn’t give him a lot of political space to repeat what he and his base see as mistakes from the Obama administration. So that is not a prediction.

I would not put any money on it, but I do think that the political terrain on which these conversations are happening, I think the political terrain is such that it would be difficult for the administration to go wobbly.

Over.

URI FRIEDMAN: Thank you. Uh, OK, Ambassador Shapiro, over to you next.

DANIEL SHAPIRO: Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us. I’ll pick up on a couple of themes from both Will and Nathan’s comments. It’s clear that the administration goes into this visit framing it as mostly about business deals, by that, I guess they mean investments in the United States from the wealthy Arab governments, arms sales perhaps to Saudi Arabia, cooperation on AI and energy.

We shouldn’t be blind to the idea that, or to the fact that the Trump Organization also has major real estate projects in all three of those countries, and that’s clearly a factor in President Trump’s thinking about which relationships he prioritizes and how he conducts them.

Having said that, there are some very significant diplomatic opportunities as well, but they’re going to require serious focused effort. One is the opportunity not to finalize Israeli-Saudi normalization, that is not in the cards right now, but to keep it alive and viable. Special Envoy Witkoff said the other day that he anticipated some major announcements regarding expansion of the Abraham Accords, but he was careful to say that the progress that those announcements would point to wouldn’t take place until 2026.

I think that’s realistic that this is not the exact moment when Israeli-Saudi normalization can be finalized, but it’s also important that the Trump administration should not take its eye off that ball. One way they could demonstrate that they’re still committed to it is by continuing to work with the Saudis on a mutual security treaty, something that was negotiated to a very advanced degree during the Biden administration and making clear that it sees a US interest in upholding that kind of security commitment if a deal is finalized.

And the second on this civil nuclear energy agreement that was referenced earlier, to continue to work toward it and advance it, but not to finalize it as a matter that has been delinked from normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. If the administration decides to delink those it removes a very important incentive for Saudi Arabia to eventually normalize relations with Israel. And so those should stay connected. In order, frankly, to get the Saudis interested or comfortable with finalizing any civil nuclear agreement, I suspect they will need to know or seek clarity on what is the US the administration’s position on Iranian enrichment in the nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The administration has given very inconsistent signals about whether, ultimately, it would agree to an arrangement which Iran would be able to continue domestic enrichment. Just yesterday, I think President Trump said he hadn’t decided yet. His various members of his administration have said contradictory things on this question. And the Iranians want to know because the Saudis will want to know, because how they frame their own civil nuclear capabilities will probably be affected by what they understand Iran’s capabilities will be going forward.

Relatedly, if indeed the administration’s position is going to land on no enrichment and dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities and only allowing the import of enriched material for civil nuclear energy, they need to make clear, that they retain the possibility of a military option if Iran won’t agree to that, and there’s a lot of leverage available because Iran is in so much weaker a position after the blows it took in 2024, which proxies Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and Hamas, and the Iraq, uh, the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and of course the Israeli strikes on Iran’s air defenses and missile production kit facilities in October. So there’s real leverage there and they should use it.

The problem of course underlying all of this trip is the unsettled nature of the war in Gaza remains a bottleneck to any kind of breakthrough. And the President could use this trip in a couple of ways to try to unstick that bottleneck, which would require avoiding this major Israeli military operation that’s been forecast and approved by the cabinet, getting hostages out, getting humanitarian aid in, and taking some steps towards Hamas’s removal.

There are two ways he could do that. One is he could offer to Prime Minister Netanyahu that he would add a stop in Israel if Prime Minister Netanyahu would agree to go to phase two of the hostage deal, that he did not agree to go to in March. That would allow all, at least the remaining living, hostages to come out or allow aid to flow and begin to move toward some other kind of arrangement with Arab support to get Hamas removed from power.

The second way he could use this trip to do that is to pressure Qatar when he’s in Doha to get Hamas to agree to the more limited hostage deal that’s proposed, but, at the moment, about six weeks and about ten hostages that would at least buy some time at some hostages home, get some more aid in, and let the administration work on this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that they’re trying, and help develop, with the Arab states, a plan to remove Hamas and to bring in an Arab force once Hamas—an Arab stabilization force—once Hamas has been removed and begin process of progress getting the Palestinian leadership that wants to live peacefully in Israel set up in Gaza. That is all, either of those steps would be important ways of keeping normalization alive for uh the timeline that Witkoff suggested, which is probably sometime next year. I’ll stop

URI FRIEDMAN: We’re gonna get the follow-up questions later, but I’m just curious, you know, Will mentioned that, the idea of a ceasefire, but the deal could be, you know, announced before the trip. Obviously, President Trump is running out of time to use some of the leverage like the Israel trip to do what you’re saying. Do you think it’s more likely than not that we get an announcement like that, or are you skeptical that that this could, that could actually come ahead of her during the trip?

DANIEL SHAPIRO: I’m skeptical that he can get Netanyahu to phase two, that might bring down the Netanyahu government, and so even during the trip he could make that hold that offer, but I think it’s not very likely. I think it’s more possible to imagine, with Qatari help, squeezing Hamas to agree to the partial deal, but none of these are high probabilities, but these are the cards that he should try to play.

URI FRIEDMAN: Got it. Ok well, Dr. Helwa, I want to go to you next for an economic perspective. So a bit of a different, turning the lens to something we haven’t talked as much about. Obviously, there are trade wars and many other things happening right now, and I want to go to you to get your thoughts on how you’re looking at things through an economic lens.

RACHA HELWA: Sure, hi everyone, nice to meet you all. Uh, so just to set the context, this visit is happening two weeks after World Bank-IMF meetings where the expectation is a global economic slowdown, including in the Gulf. GDP growth has been degraded by IMF-World Bank, so right now we’re going with the background knowledge that the region has been more conservative about pledging funds, about their own economic plans.

The purpose of the trip, in my opinion, has a strong economic component in terms of investment and energy, so these are the two main pillars. On energy, I think that the Trump administration has made the correlation between inflation here in the US and the price of oil, so there’ll be a lot of pressure into trying to push the price of oil down. In my opinion, this needs to be approached very carefully because right now the price of oil is ranging in the mid sixty dollars per barrel and the break-even point for Saudi to get the public, so the fiscal basically situation and the black is ninety dollars, so it’s way below what they need. So, I don’t really think it’s realistic to think that they’ll go lower. I think a way to approach this that could be a win-win is to also embrace this new interest of the region and renewables and try to make a deal between the two traditional hydrocarbons and renewables, climate adaptation largely. So that’s on the oil side.

On investment, right before the visit we heard in the news Saudi and the UAE have already both pledged investments over the coming years, one trillion dollar out of the UAE in the coming ten years and uh $600 billion from Saudi in the coming four years. I usually look at this announcements with a little bit of skepticism because they don’t have a clear structure or roadmap on how they’re going to happen, especially in view of the current economic situation, the pledge coming out of the UAE, if we think about it in relative terms, this is like almost triple the GDP of the UAE in one year, so, you know, so I think again, going there, we shouldn’t really expect something big, a big announcements on how, you know, investments will flow out of the Gulf to here. I think we really have to think of as a partnership and a win-win situation where the region has really been investing a lot to GCC countries in AI and innovation, and this could really be a leverage point for the Trump administration to negotiate with. Think about mutual programs, innovation programs, research agreements that could benefit both sides. This would be very, very helpful. So I think generally the theme is to try and step away from the conventional thinking of the Gulf as a source of oil dollars flowing out and think of it more as a partner who has been maturing into the global economy, putting investments in innovation and other sector renewables and other like futuristic sectors and try to embrace this in a win-win sort of mindset.

URI FRIEDMAN:OK, great. Thank you. Clarke, what’s on your mind?

R. CLARKE COOPER: Yes, so one thing to look at this is there’s an internal messaging platform for the president. I mean, it’s already been cited this is the first trip, significant trip of the administration as it was during the first term.

It’s no secret that there’s an internal debate about US presence in the Middle East, as well as efficacy and expansion on the Abraham Accords. So it’s important for our partners in the Gulf to have the president be there, but this also provides I’d say, internal domestic leverage on advocacy for US presence being in the region.

You know, it’s worth noting that as in the first term, through the Biden administration, and now, Gulf security cooperation and interoperability has not actually waned as far as requirements. The need is still there, and this goes to something that Nathan had addressed on Iran. Regardless of if there’s a deal or no deal, there does remain a shared interest in security cooperation from a global aspect. I mean, there’s commercial interests that aren’t going to go away anytime soon when we’re talking about freedom of navigation and the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab, those reciprocities remain a necessity for US presence in the region.

And then again, we’ve already touched upon Ambassador Shapiro and actually Ambassador Sales, they both talked about where there could be movement toward expansion of the Abraham Accords. I think one thing to look at regardless of what takes place immediately following this trip is a long-term view on a march toward normalization, you know, talking to officials, regardless if they’re in Riyadh or Jerusalem, and there is, there’s definitely a desire on the expansion of the accords, you know, will that happen immediately.

There’s much that has to be addressed on reconciliation in Gaza, but a long-term view is seemingly what is being looked at on the Abraham Accords. And then finally, just wanted to throw out there, I’m currently in a multilateral group here at Harvard, that includes a large number of Gulf senior level and mid-level security officials and it is in a positive way, palpable about the excitement and anticipation of this trip here, uh, of those who are currently on what I would, you know, use an American term TDY to the US.

URI FRIEDMAN: Yeah, it’s a really interesting perspective. Thanks, Clarke. Jonathan, what are you watching most closely?

JONATHAN PANIKOFF: Thanks. So three things that all kind of hit on that go on top of a lot of the comments that have already been made by my colleagues.

So one is, I think there’s a lot more concern and frustration that it’s probably being publicly noted, and not having it not be public is a positive for these countries, about where the US economy has been over the last few weeks, especially in the last few months, because all three of the countries that the president is going to have their currencies pegged to the dollar, and it’s having a greater impact than I think is publicly being announced, but you’re hearing behind the scenes, and I think it will come up, is a real frustration that it’s starting to drag them down as well, at a time when President Trump is asking for massive investment from these countries.

So we know the Saudis have talked about $600 billion and President Trump came back and said, look, we’d like to get it up to 1 trillion. We know that Thanoun was here from the UAE not too long ago, and there was a commitment to hit around 1.4 trillion. I think those conversations about how to deal with, not only the tariffs that those countries are facing, but how to ensure that the US economy is more robust because it’s important, critically, for these countries’ own economy. It’s going to be a pretty major part of this conversation, and I think to the point that a number of my colleagues made,

Secondly, it’s going to happen in a transactional way, whether it’s, it’s Sinu whether it’s investment in in AI, it’ll be really interesting to see how much the Trump administration is really latching on to efforts that the Biden administration had already made to try to advance some of these desires and these deals and advance them further, especially on the AI side, on the space side, um. And versus one might actually be original and what might be new.

The third point I’ll just make, and I completely align myself with where Clarke and others have talked about in terms of the regional security is, look, I think there’s a bit of an underestimation still about how fundamentally different of a place that the Gulf states, especially the Saudis and the Emiratis are in today, compared to his first trip in 2017 and what that looks like. Today, you have these states, unlike then, almost certainly are going to be welcoming and desiring of some sort of deal with Iran, whereas at the time, they were the champions of pushing for what eventually became a maximum pressure effort of eventually going after the Iranians.

The view really has been after the attack on the UAE about three years ago that hit the airport that the US really can’t be counted on as a security guarantor. And no matter what happens with the deal in terms of the Saudis, the $100 billion arms deal, that in itself is going to be insufficient to provide the amount of type of defense guarantees that are going to be required for the states. And so if the US can’t be counted as a real partner to provide that level of defense and the type of umbrella that these states want in order to ensure their economies grow and diversify, which is the most critical issue, especially to the Saudis, then they had to go to plan B, and I think we’re seeing them do that. And plan B is OK, we’re going to have detente with the Iranians, we’re going to completely shift how our mindset has been. I don’t think there’s a love lost there. I don’t think there’s a naivete there. I think they understand that fundamentally, they had to make a different decision for their own self-interests, and I think that’s what’s happened. So it’s set up a very different structure and a very different situation than where you were eight years ago, and I’ll really be watching to see if the Trump administration, which has its own internal divisions, ideologically and from a policy perspective about how to approach so many of these issues, latches onto that, and who really pushes forward and recognizes that and takes advantage and who are still trying to fight the fight of eight years ago.

URI FRIEDMAN:Got it. Thanks, Jonathan, and I’m going to jump in with some follow-up questions, but just a reminder to the group, those who have joined us, feel free now, um, through the end of the call to jump in with your questions. As I mentioned, you can put it in the chat, um, and I can ask it or you can, um, or raise your hands and I’ll go to you to ask your question, just to identify, you know, who you are and, and what outlet you’re with and you can direct the question to a particular expert or to the group as a whole. So feel free to do that, um, and jump in with any questions. But I want to start Jonathan with one question back to you. You mentioned question about the US as a security guarantor going forward and that leading to some efforts at the town with Iran. do those questions about the US as a security guarantor going forward, factor into the questions about um, Israeli Saudi normalization, because presumably as part of that, there would be some US commitments, um, on, on security to Saudi Arabia, potentially, and if there are questions about that, could that complicate, could that be something that complicates, you know, getting to Saudi Israeli normalization.

JONATHAN PANIKOFF: I think that’s certainly part of the question. I think US, Saudi, US efforts towards Saudi normalization with Israel were never about just one thing, right? I mean, I think it certainly has been about a defensive umbrella and we heard during the last administration a lot of conversation and talk about a potential treaty. It was also about civil nuclear capabilities and what Saudi wanted and whether you’re talking about, uh, enrichment in Saudi Arabia. I think all of these are intertwined, but at the moment, the fundamental question still for the Saudis at least, it is about Gaza in a multipolar world in which MBS sees himself not just as the Saudi pole, but as the fundamental Arab pole. He can’t just decide we’re not going to pay attention to the challenge of Gaza, to the Palestinian question. I think that fundamentally has to be resolved in a meaningful way.

That doesn’t mean, I think, that you’re going to have to get to a place where there is a salary, there is a Palestine, a state of Palestine. but it does mean you’re going to have to at least be advancing, and so it’s why I think we’re still a number of years away, and the question is going to be what the US provides in the meantime. If the US is deciding, OK, we’re going to have a bilateral deal that’s an important one on defense. We’re gonna have a deal related to civil nuclear cooperation, does that actually mean that the timeline for normalization gets extended because you don’t have then ultimately the same trade space and the same leverage.

In order to get the Saudis to say we’re going to normalize with Israel down the road. In other words, you’ve already given away some of the key priorities for the Saudis and so they also then feel that they can extend out how long they wait to actually normalize with Israel.

URI FRIEDMAN:Got it. And Dr. Helwa, I want to go to you on one question about the, you know, it’s part of the surround sound of this visit are the—the trade wars and tariffs, and I’m curious, do you, as Jonathan mentioned, you know, this, this will likely come up in—in—as part of President Trump’s trip, do you expect any deals to be reached or major progress to be announced on, um, uh, the tariffs and, and broader economic relations with these countries. I don’t know if you saw but in President Trump’s meeting with Mark Carney in the Oval Office. He kind of teased a very big announcement, as big as it gets that it was going to come. I don’t know if anyone has thoughts on what that will be, whether it be economic, security, or otherwise. Dr. Helwa, I want to get your take on that.

RACHA HELWA: Sure. Yeah, I think honestly, the GCC is not right now directly really influenced by the tariffs, first, it’s only 10 percent for the GCC second and most importantly, Most of the imports of the US from the GCC is about oil, which is exempted. So I don’t think that this will really center be the center of the conversation, however indirectly, they are affected because of the global demand slowdown, which means also slower the first thing that will be impacted by the global demand slowdown is actually oil. So—so I think it will come within the overall context of discussing economic priorities, but I don’t think there is a particular lobbying. bringing down the 10 percent because it’s instrumental for the GCC.

URI FRIEDMAN: OK. Great. Thank you. I do have one question in from Aya Batrawi at NPR and I can ask you about feel for you to jump in with any additional thoughts. If you like, the question is about, Gulf money and investments in the Trump family enterprises, like crypto, Trump Org and affinity Partners, and the question is more, can you put these massive investments in context for us with regard to Trump’s transactional. approach to business and politics and how it might factor into the visit. So I don’t know if anyone wants to take that one.

RACHA HELWA: Maybe I’ll, I, I mean, honestly, I think it’s more of a, of a diplomacy equation cause I don’t really see how he is going to go with the mindset of discussing personal deals. I don’t think that’s going to be the focus, but—but obviously happy to pass this over to others who have other opinions about it.

URI FRIEDMAN: OK. Well, seeing that people can jump in as we have questions but I’ll go to the next one. Will one question I had, you mentioned it’s kind of different scenarios of what a nuclear deal with Iran might look like. And I’m curious as you see negotiations progressing right now. What would you say—scenario this out for me a little bit. Like, what do you see is the most likely outcome of these talks and as Ambassador Shapiro mentioned, it’s all interconnected, right? So what’s happening with these nuclear talks could affect calculations on Israeli, Saudi normalization and a civil nuclear deal too. So what do you think are some of the likeliest outcomes, and do you see any meaningful progress on the talks happening as a result of this trip?

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: The most meaningful progress we’ll know on Sunday, when Witkoff is meeting with the Iranian foreign minister for not just indirect talks but for direct talks as well to continue this, and this is just at that level, suggests they’re pretty much moving forward at a pretty good clip. The amazing thing is the Trump administration is projecting, frankly, clear desperation to have a deal. As mentioned by some of my colleagues before, you have the Secretary of State, now the—also the national security advisor and the vice president both saying things like, that there can be no enrichment, and then the President of the United States saying publicly that he has not yet made that decision.

It just continues the—the message that President Trump has been giving and Steve Witkoff has been giving consistently that that they want a deal. And in this, they are more aligned with Riyadh than Jerusalem. Which wants deescalation of tensions. It’s been one of the surprising elements that Donald Trump personally hasn’t been more affected by the intelligence and reality of that Tehran tried to kill him while he was out of office, and that this is not affected his thinking, at least to date on this, and that he very much wants to have a deal.

In fact, I personally think that a deal along the lines that have been discussed would not be in US interests. And for those who share my views, the main thing that we are depending on is the inability of the Iranian system to take advantage of the opportunity that’s available to them right now, the diplomatic opportunity that’s failed. There’s a lot of reasons why they might not be able to do so. But that’s, really, what we have to hope for because the Trump administration is sending every signal that they want a deal, and they want a deal at almost any cost.

URI FRIEDMAN: OK, thanks Will. And I guess on the Iranian side of things, Ambassador Sales, one thing I was wondering when you were talking about that you didn’t see it as politically particularly likely, that’s something a JCPOA light or something would get through Congress, some kind of deal like that. I’m curious if given what you think is doable on the US side. I’m curious what your assessment is of what Iran would accept because are there divergences between what is feasible for Trump with Congress and what the Iranians are looking for and what they would agree to?

NATHAN SALES: I don’t have any particular expertise in Iranian Kremlinology. So, I don’t know what they would accept. It’s the Supreme Leader’s call, not the Foreign Minister, not even the head of the IRGC, so that’s the decision maker and I don’t pretend to have any expertise in reading those tea leaves.

I do think it’s a moving target, though. I think if you go in with a maximalist list of demands, you may not get all ten, but you’re more likely to get seven, than if you go in with a minimalist list of demands seeking two or three. And I think, just to reinforce the point about what is politically viable in this environment, we woke up a couple of days ago to news that the British intelligence services had disrupted one or multiple plots by Iranian entities in the UK, apparently targeting the Israeli embassy.

This is an unbelievably brazen plot. Usually the Iranians like to do this stuff by hiding behind proxies when they were going to assassinate John Bolton. They used Mexican cartel when they attempted to off the Saudi ambassador a decade and a half ago. Again, it was organized crime. This is different. This is people who have much clearer, it seems, links to the Iranian regime and to carry out an attack on the soil of a country that still has an embassy in Tehran is a particularly brazen act.

The key takeaway from this, any dollar in sanctions relief that goes to Iran under a JCPOA 2.0 without also addressing support for terrorism and regional proxies — every one of those dollars increases the surplus that the Iranian regime can use to fund further terrorism like the sort we just heard about in the UK. In that environment, it seems to be particularly difficult for the administration to sell on the Hill a minimalist agreement that leaves Iran free and indeed empowered with further resources to continue this kind of mischief.

URI FRIEDMAN: Ok, thank you. Ambassador Shapiro, I wanted to go to you with one related question on these Iranian nuclear talks. You wrote for us a little while ago that arguably a military option is more feasible than any time in recent decades. And the point was that if negotiations do peter out and sanctions are reimposed, there will be a crisis moment where President Trump will be the point of decision over escalation or not. And I’m curious you wrote that, earlier in April. And I’m curious, do you still feel the same way—where are we on that decision point, do you think? On military escalation. Do you see that in the offing? It may not reach a crisis point on this trip, but these issues are going to be in play and are moving. So I’m curious what your take is on that.

DANIEL SHAPIRO: So it’s clear that the president wanted to give a chance for the diplomatic process to play out, and that sensibility, obviously, at least according to the New York Times, discouraged Israel to move forward with the military plans that they were considering as early as May.

But there’s no question, as I wrote, and as you referenced, that Iran is in a much weaker position than it’s been at any point in previous nuclear negotiations. The blows to the proxy network for Hezbollah, which was the major second-strike capability that was kind of a deterrent to military action, is largely—deeply diminished. Not fully destroyed but certainly can’t produce the kind of attack against Israel that was once feared. And the Assad regime has fallen, removing an important highway of weapons supply to Hezbollah. Other proxies in Iraq and the Houthis and Hamas have been damaged as well. And then of course there were the Israeli strikes against Iran in October that took out their most sophisticated air defense systems, their S-300s, protecting some of their nuclear sites. And damaged their ballistic missile production capability.

It also had a psychological effect in that it demonstrated how vulnerable Iran is to further Israeli strikes and possibly American strikes against nuclear facilities, against energy targets, against regime targets and the like. So, there’s a lot of leverage there that should be drawn on in these talks. And what’s puzzling is that the administration seems to have gone into the talks without deciding on a fundamental question about what their goal is.

When you listen to the different statements almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day, from different administration officials. It’s hard to know whether they ultimately would agree to a deal of which Iran would pay a domestic enrichment capability. Iran, of course, insists that they would never agree to a deal that would take away that capability. That’s a red line for them.

It would certainly require the Supreme Leader to overrule that and reverse that. But if the administration went in with that as a very strong position, in order to avoid ending up in a deal kind of a warmed over version as Amb Sales was referencing of the 2015 agreement and the difficulty of selling that to Congress and getting the sanctions relief that would come with it, they could draw on the leverage of—of the Iranian weakness, the demonstrated capability of Israel and if necessary, the United States, to hold their nuclear sites at risk. And that has not seemed to be a feature of the diplomacy until now.

But it’s—it’s most defined in my mind by the fact that the administration began the negotiations without internally settling on the outcome they were seeking. And that’s left many, many questions in the minds of partners in the region, Arab partners, Israel, of course, Congress and I’m sure the Iranians about what the actual bottom line for the administrations is in these negotiations.

URI FRIEDMAN: OK, thank you. I did want to go to Aya from NPR who I think has a follow-up question from her earlier one. So, Aya, over to you.

AYA BATRAWY: Hi, sorry. I’m in the car. Thank you. I guess I could, I wanted to direct this sensitive but very important question that I think needs to be on our minds, which is two billion dollars in affinity partners from a sovereign wealth fund two billion dollars into a cryptocurrency from another sovereign wealth fund over the weekend. We have hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump org, projects all over the Gulf, and I just wanted to ask like William or Clarke if you may cause I think you had talked about this being a transactional trip. Like how do these investments into the Trump family orbit. play into, you know, the interests of this visit, the relationship between Trump and the Gulf leaders, and the overall US national interest versus the personal interests.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Sure, I’ll—I’ll jump in on that. This confusion of personal family interests and national interest is something that most presidents in our history have guarded against very, very strongly, and we’ve had a long tradition of history of presidents putting interest and trust and wanting to be distanced, from any commercial interests that they or their family must have. That has all changed. There’s no question about that. Even from questions that emerged in the first Trump term, to what we see in the second Trump term are completely night and day difference from that. The question that I would have is for the governments in the region.

Who all should have one clear national security interests of their own, which is to ensure that they do not become part of the domestic political debate inside the United States. I can understand no argument why any other foreign government would want to be part of a domestic political debate inside the United States. And what is highly predictable is that there will be a time in the future in which Democrats will be in a position to do formal investigations of,all of these Trump family activities, just the same way that the Trump administration did investigations of Hunter Biden’s commercial activities and if I was leading the UAE or Saudi Arabia or Qatar or frankly any other country in the world, I would want to make sure that when those investigations happen that I am not part of them.

URI FRIEDMAN: OK. Thank you, I do want to go, Clarke, to you with one follow-up question, and make sure if anyone else has questions. Clarke, you talked a bit about the Abraham Accords, and I’m curious, how do you see that being developed and playing out because we haven’t had—that was a huge achievement at the end of the first Trump administration. Obviously, President Trump is now going to a bunch of countries where there’s been talk in Saudi Arabia’s case, certainly of normalization in the future, but Saudi Arabia isn’t the only way to expand and build on the Abraham Accords. And I’m curious, what are you tracking right now in terms of what could be the next development there? And how do you see those being expanded on over the course of the administration? What signals are you picking up on that you think are most significant?

R. CLARKE COOPER: Sure, well, I want to do a little bit of comparative analysis very quickly.

But if we look back at when the accords were first signed, conversations about Saudi Arabia and the kingdom being a signer were almost done in hushed tones, relatively clandestinely. Saudi officials would entertain conversations bilaterally with US officials, but it wasn’t really openly discussed. And then as the accords were cemented, there was positive movement and there were tangible reciprocal benefits, not only in the defense space, but in the commercial space and even in the people-to-people space, there was a little bit more,coming out, so to speak, about aspirations.

And one would find anecdotally, on a personal level, Saudi interlocutors discussing a desire to be the next accord state. This all, of course, predates October 7th, and predates the—the conflict in Gaza. But it didn’t abate it completely. And so what we need to remember again, the long-term perspective is that yes, for Saudi officials, reconciliation in a ceasefire at a minimum and then beyond, is part of the runway or the platform toward normalization, but it, it hasn’t gone away. And it is fascinating when talking to below a minister level. Saudis who have seen friends, relatives who are either in the Emirates or elsewhere. Or Bahrain is a perfect example. They want to get in on that.

So I think from a people to people level, the desire is still there, but as we’ve already all discussed today, Gaza and peace and the reconciliation and rebuilding and reconstruction, how that may manifest itself has to take place. It is a predicate toward the accords. But the accords have actually been able to not only sustain some significant stress testing, there’s definitely room for growth. But that obviously is the most interested area for now. And I would close with this is that on that anecdote, like I said, this week, I’ve been, with a number of Gulf officials at the mid and senior level. And they are all very much still keen on seeing this be successful.

URI FRIEDMAN: OK, thank you. Well, we’ll have to wrap in a few minutes, but one thing we haven’t talked about so much is why the fact that this is the first trip Trump is taking. A lot of presidents in the past have gone to Canada or Mexico, some to Europe. President Biden went to the UK at his first trip, but now two trips in a row, first in the first administration, first in the 2nd, Trump has gone to the Middle East. And I’m curious if anyone has some closing thoughts on just the significance of the fact that the administration has chosen to send a signal by going to these Gulf countries first. I don’t know if anyone wants to jump in with some closing thoughts there, but I wanted to throw that out to the group.

RACHA HELWA: I actually have another point that I needed to discuss. I think we’re now discussing the GCC as one pot, but we need to really consider at least from an economic perspective that these are different countries. They have different economic challenges or opportunities. And they’ll discuss different bilateral deals.

The UAE, for example, is less sensitive to the oil pressure; the UAE breakeven point that I just discussed for Saudi earlier is forty dollars per barrel. So it’s actually right now at a surplus, so I think they’re not as sensitive to the discussion as Saudi. However, within OPEC plus, Saudi obviously has a dominant voice, so I think Saudi will still try to push for the, the existing sort of limitation on supply.

However, both the UAE and Saudi will be very keen on promoting their plan for Vision 2030, economic diversification, and hence they will really try to get a deal on technology transfer. I wouldn’t be surprised if this mega announcement will come upon some technology agreement between those countries,

So that’s for Saudi and the UAE. Now Bahrain is at a much worse economic situation where the fiscal deficit is significant. Economic growth is much slower, and in fact, Bahrain would and should be impacted by the 10 percent trade because in the past this used to be 0 percent. So maybe there will be more focus on immediate, short term transactional outcomes like, “oh, can we take out the 10 percent.”

Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, I think will be working more within the dynamics of traditional deals of security versus general economic collaboration and wouldn’t really be pushing for extra technology deals or anything like that, they’re not as ambitious as Saudi and the UAE in this regard. So I think while we think of the region as—as one sort of lump sum, we really need to consider also the interregional differences and considerations.

Further reading

Image: FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One for travel back to Washington, D.C., at Palm Beach International Airport, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. May 4, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

Uncertainty has defined financial markets this year. It’s not going away because the source of the problem is the Trump administration.

Tariffs are the main financial issue. President Trump has sometimes backpedaled when the markets have plunged. But he and other members of his administration have made it clear that higher tariffs of some sort are here, even though they are unpopular and most economists say they are a mistake. The risk of higher inflation and slower economic growth, along with strained relations with China and with many erstwhile allies, now appears to be a fact of life.

Mr. Trump says he is at heart “a tariff man” and wants to change the world. It’s wise to believe him. In fact, I think it’s time to accept that disruption is here to stay. This is causing problems for investors. Yet even in times of turmoil, there are new investment opportunities.

Bonds are a case in point. The Treasury market has gotten considerable attention lately because, in response to the tariff announcements, yields rocketed and prices sank in a manner that has, in the past, been associated with full-blown financial crises. That market has calmed down a bit, but the chances of further eruptions are high. They may even be set off by other parts of the Trump policy tool kit — say, the president’s goal of extending tax cuts that expire this year and adding new ones, enormously expanding the federal budget deficit and the Treasuries needed to finance it.

One hundred days of President Trump. Seventy days of whipsaw trading in financial markets. Thirty-two days of losses. More than $6.5 trillion wiped from the value of public companies.

For financial markets, the 7 percent drop in the S&P 500 is the worst start to a presidential term since Gerald R. Ford took over from Richard M. Nixon in August 1974 after the Watergate scandal. The slump is worse even than when the tech bubble burst at the turn of the century, and George W. Bush inherited a market already in free fall.

In contrast, Mr. Trump inherited an economy on solid footing and a stock market rising from one record high to another.

That swiftly changed when Mr. Trump unveiled his marquee suite of tariffs on April 2 — not the first new import taxes announced by his administration, but by far the most sweeping. Volatility erupted. Wall Street frantically began to grapple with the economic consequences of the new government’s policies.

Summary

Companies Trump says will lift all Syria sanctions

Major investment expected from Gulf states

Trump not visiting Israel during the trip

Offers brighter future to Iran but warns of maximum pressure if no new nuclear deal

RIYADH, May 13 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump kicked off his trip to the Gulf on Tuesday with a surprise announcement that the United States will lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, and a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S.

The U.S. agreed to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, according to the White House which called it the largest “defense cooperation agreement” Washington has ever done.

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The end of sanctions on Syria would be a huge boost for a country that has been shattered by more than a decade of civil war. Rebels led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled President Bashar al-Assad last December.

Speaking at an investment forum in Riyadh at the start of a deals-focused trip that also brought a flurry of diplomacy, Trump said he was acting on a request to scrap the sanctions by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“Oh what I do for the crown prince,” Trump said, drawing laughs from the audience. He said the sanctions had served an important function but that it was now time for the country to move forward.

The move represents a major U.S. policy shift. The U.S. declared Syria a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979, added sanctions in 2004 and imposed further sanctions after the civil war broke out in 2011.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani said on X that the planned move marked a “new start” in Syria’s path to reconstruction. Trump has agreed to briefly greet Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, a White House official said.

Trump and the Saudi crown prince signed an agreement covering energy, defense, mining and other areas. Trump has sought to strengthen relations with the Saudis to improve regional ties with Israel and act as a bulwark against Iran.

The agreement covers deals with more than a dozen U.S. defense companies for areas including air and missile defense, air force and space, maritime security and communications, a White House fact sheet said.

It was not clear whether the deal included Lockheed F-35 jets , which sources say have been discussed. The Saudi prince said the total package could reach $1 trillion when further agreements are reached in the months ahead.

Saudi Arabia is one of the largest customers for U.S. arms, and the two countries have maintained strong ties for decades based on an arrangement in which the kingdom delivers oil and the superpower provides security.

But relations were strained after the 2018 murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul caused a global uproar. U.S. intelligence concluded that bin Salman approved an operation to capture or kill Khashoggi, a prominent critic, but the Saudi government has denied any involvement.

Trump did not mention the incident during his visit and called bin Salman an “incredible man.”

Item 1 of 15 President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman shake hands during a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13. REUTERS/Brian Snyder [1/15] President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman shake hands during a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13. REUTERS/Brian Snyder Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

“I really believe we like each other a lot,” Trump said.

Trump will go on from Riyadh to Qatar on Wednesday and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday in a trip that is focused on investment rather than security matters in the Middle East.

Several U.S. business leaders attended the event, including Elon Musk , the Tesla chief who has led a government-downsizing effort for Trump in Washington; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman.

Trump was shown speaking with several Saudi officials, including sovereign wealth fund governor Yasir al-Rumayyan, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser and investment minister Khalid al-Falih as he viewed models for the kingdom’s flashy, multi-billion-dollar development projects.

Bin Salman has focused on diversifying the Saudi economy in a major reform program dubbed Vision 2030 that includes “Giga-projects” such as NEOM, a futuristic city the size of Belgium. Oil generated 62% of Saudi government revenue last year.

The kingdom has scaled back some of its ambitions as rising costs and falling oil prices weigh.

NO VISIT TO ISRAEL, WARNING TO IRAN

Trump has not scheduled a stop in Israel , raising questions about where the close ally stands in Washington’s priorities as Trump presses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a new ceasefire deal in the 19-month-old Gaza war

Israel’s military operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and its assassinations of the two Iran-allied groups’ leaders, have at the same time given Trump more leverage by weakening Tehran and its regional allies.

Trump said it was his “fervent hope” that Saudi Arabia would soon normalize relations with Israel, following other Arab states that did so during his first 2017-2021 term. “But you’ll do it in your own time,” he said.

Netanyahu’s opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state makes progress with the Saudis unlikely, sources told Reuters

Trump on Tuesday called Iran “the most destructive force” in the Middle East and warned that the U.S. will never allow it to obtain a nuclear weapon. He said he was willing to strike a new deal with the Islamic Republic but only if its leaders changed course.

“I want to make a deal with Iran,” he said. “But if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch… we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure.”

Reporting by Gram Slattery, Pesha Magid, Yousef Saba, Federico Maccioni and Nafisa Eltahir in Riyadh and Maha El Dahan in Dubai; writing by Michael Georgy and Andy Sullivan; editing by Timothy Heritage, Colleen Jenkins, Mark Heinrich and Alistair Bell

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CNN —

The Trump administration’s statements and actions aimed at curtailing the number of international students in the US have sent a chill of uncertainty through higher education institutions.

These American schools have become more reliant on the higher tuition paid by international students as state and federal support has waned. Now, their financial viability could be shaken.

That could have a negative impact on US-born students seeking a college education, and economists and researchers warn that the ripple effects could extend well beyond the lawns of college campuses: A drop-off in international students could reverberate through the US labor market and broader economy in years to come.

“The skill premium, as we call it, is very large, which is why highly educated workers earn so much more,” said Michael Lovenheim, a labor economist and professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

International students, he added, “generate not only returns to themselves through higher wages, but they work in sectors that generate economic growth, they start businesses, they work in high-growth areas that generate more productivity and increase [Gross Domestic Product].”

And that economic impact, he said, is “positive and large.”

During the 2023-24 academic year, 1.1 million international students were credited with supporting 378,175 jobs, half of which were at colleges and universities and the rest being in other sectors such as housing, food service, retail, transportation and insurance, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

All told, that amounted to a record-high economic contribution of $43.8 billion, according to the member-based organization.

Reducing enrollment or hurting international students’ desire to study in America, he added, will “lessen our economic competitiveness in the medium run and maybe the long run as well, depending on how things play out.”

The Trump administration’s efforts to limit international students have already affected the Global Migration Center, an interdisciplinary research center at the University of California, Davis, said center director Giovanni Peri, an economist and UC-Davis professor who has researched the economic impacts of international migration.

“The new cohort of students that are coming (from other countries), we’ve already lost a few of them because of the uncertainty of the funding and the visa that we’re providing,” Peri told CNN in an interview. “A couple of people who were from Europe decided to go to England.”

And the international students currently conducting research at the center are experiencing hardships as well, he added.

“They are really struggling with their funding; they are not traveling internationally. A couple of my students could not go to international conferences in the last couple of months because they were worried they would not have been able to come back” because of worries they’d get stopped at the border, Peri said.

The research itself, he added, has become harder with reduced funding.

“It took a long time for the US to establish itself as, by far, the strongest university environment in the world,” he said. “But things change, and things can change in a more permanent way.”

If international students elect to instead study in Canada, Europe, Australia or other regions, that loss will ultimately damage the US economy, he said.

“The rate at which foreign students create firms in the United States after graduation is about four times as large as the rate at which Americans create,” Peri said, citing his research on the topic. “So, there will be fewer companies created. There will be fewer scientists and engineers to fill other companies in the US; there will be less growth of companies, jobs, and lower income in many local economies.”

The potential business generation effect already is hampered by immigration restrictions or challenges, Peri noted.

In an earlier study, he and his colleagues found that because of immigration and visa restrictions, only 20% of international US Master’s graduates remained in the US and worked for at least two years. There have been legislative proposals to give a green card to students who earn a degree in the US (a policy that Trump publicly supported), Peri said, adding that “not only this has not happened, but we have made several steps in the opposite direction.”

“This is now a completely different world, but this idea of students who study in the US should be able, if the company makes an offer, to have a visa had such a consensus that was so broad and so bipartisan,” he said. “Because everybody saw that the US helped these students and this human capital to be created and that some of the benefits could stay in the US if there is an option.”

If the Trump administration’s policies and approach toward international students don’t change significantly, these negative consequences could be felt in the broader US economy in two to three years, he added.

Not excusing the “brutality” of the Trump administration’s approach, recent events could drive a meaningful debate around the internationalization of the American student body, David Bell, a history professor at Princeton, wrote Tuesday in a New York Times opinion piece.

Bell noted that 1.1 million international students enrolled in the 2023-2024 school year — four times the enrollment 45 years ago.

“Like many large social changes, this one happened without much conscious planning or debate,” he wrote. “Foreign students kept applying in ever greater numbers, and universities happily admitted them, since non-Americans receive merit- and need-based financial assistance at much lower rates than Americans do. It has taken Donald Trump’s crude and vengeful swipe at Harvard to draw much attention to the subject.”

In a follow-up interview with CNN, Bell noted the potential trade-offs with expanding international enrollment: On one hand, universities can serve as engines for future economic growth and further global relationships; on the other hand, universities potentially could fall short when serving homegrown applicants.

“The past couple of decades, the trend has been very, very strongly toward a steady increase in the number of international students, and I think it may be worth asking whether we should be continuing with that increase, or should we keep (enrollment) at the current level or even decrease the level of international students slightly,” Bell said. “Not doing anything precipitous, not doing anything brutal as the administration seems to be attempting to do, but simply keeping an eye on the situation and recognizing the trade-offs.”