The spotlight on US policy in the Middle East remains focused on talks with Iran, with a third round set for Oman this coming weekend after discussions in Rome on April 19 offered some signs of progress.
But a growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the stalled efforts to safely return hostages held by Hamas, including American captive Edan Alexander, remain the biggest challenges that President Donald Trump’s administration has yet to address successfully.
Iran and Arab-Israeli relations continue to be the overriding challenges for US strategy in the region. More than three months into the second Trump administration, conditions look more favorable for a deal on Iran than they do on the Arab-Israeli front. As the United States prepares for Trump’s planned trip on May 13-16 to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, the stalled efforts to produce a breakthrough between Israelis and Palestinians continue to hinder the president’s wider ambitions for the region.
Without serious progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, the efforts to advance stability and prosperity across the region and produce big gains like a deal to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to succeed.
US national security: Trade war theatrics, more cuts to US national security institutions
The bigger picture in US foreign policy is Trump’s continuing effort to remake US economic relations with the rest of the world. The president shows signs of backing away from his dramatic “Liberation Day” tariff announcements on April 2. Trump authorized a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for all countries except China. He has also started to signal a walk-back from the high tariffs he imposed on China, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted that a US-China trade war is not sustainable.
The second major development in Washington this past week is Trump’s continued campaign to downsize key national security institutions. Trump extended a hiring freeze on federal civilian employees within the executive branch, first outlined in his Jan. 20 executive order, until July 15, 2025. The administration also reinstated measures that could make it easier to terminate thousands of civil servants.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced plans for a major overhaul of US diplomatic institutions following the elimination of the US Agency for International Development. The Pentagon could see as many as 200,000 job cuts from a civilian workforce of 750,000 by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, at a time when upheaval and infighting have produced what one former top Pentagon spokesman called “total chaos.”
The main storyline in Trump’s national security approach continues to be this: stepping up military spending and investments while gutting the institutions of diplomacy and development. Contrasting the announcement of deep cuts at the State Department, the president outlined a $1 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2026 that amounts to an increase of roughly 12%.
US policy on the Palestinians: The weakest link in Trump 2.0’s Middle East approach
As cuts to government cause turmoil in Washington, an important story continues to take shape in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli actions are exacerbating the misery of millions of Palestinians and could end up limiting efforts to produce broader regional progress.
The Trump administration’s attempts to extend phase one of the cease-fire reached in January failed. Israel renewed a military campaign in March that has injured thousands of Palestinians and killed an estimated 1,400, according to Gazan health officials. Airstrikes have destroyed key infrastructure, including Gaza City's last fully operational hospital. Israel now controls about half of Gaza, expanding a buffer zone that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and rendered vast areas uninhabitable. Israeli forces have encircled Rafah and cut it off from Khan Younis.
The siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza includes a block on humanitarian aid in an effort to pressure Hamas to make concessions in ongoing negotiations. Nearly all of the estimated 2 million Palestinians in Gaza rely on charity kitchens for food, as the threat of famine grows. Israel has stopped designating humanitarian zones intended to secure the entry and movement of aid workers and supplies. According to the United Nations, this is the longest period without humanitarian aid or commercial supplies entering Gaza since the beginning of the conflict more than a year and a half ago. Another round of a polio vaccination campaign scheduled to start earlier this month was postponed due to the war.
As ongoing talks have failed to produce a new cease-fire, some Israeli officials have de-prioritized the return of hostages. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, said that saving the hostages in Gaza is not the “most important goal” in its war against Hamas, underscoring that their aims are to “eliminate the problem of Gaza” and the threat the enclave poses to Israel. This statement came at a time when Israeli society is deeply divided and actively protesting the government’s handling of the hostage negotiations and questioning Israel’s war strategy.
Efforts to bridge the divide between Israel and Hamas continue, with Qatari and Egyptian mediators proposing new ideas to end the war. Hamas rejected a recent Israeli proposal that would release 10 hostages for a 45-day cease-fire. Some mediators report that Hamas is willing to enter a long-term truce with Israel during which it would halt all military operations and hand over governing control of Gaza to an independent group of Palestinian technocrats, as laid out in Egypt's proposal for postwar administration of the coastal strip.
Another major global event this past week in its own way served as a reminder of the plight of the Palestinians living in Gaza: the passing of Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis was one of the strongest voices calling for an end to the war and expressing empathy with the Palestinian people caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hamas. Since the start of the war, Pope Francis called a Catholic parish in Gaza every night, including last Saturday night, just hours before he died.
In sum, the Israeli-Palestinian front remains the thorniest and most difficult challenge to producing progress in the Middle East. Without a clear game plan to end the war, bring hostages home, and improve the living conditions for the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, the Trump administration’s wider aspirations for the Middle East will continue to face limits.
Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at MEI.
Photo by Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images
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