Trump’s Family Business Deals Risk Further Undermining the Credibility of US Middle East Policy
President Trump’s family businesses are once again in the spotlight as a new financial disclosure showed they earned $2 billion in income in 2025 — a dramatic increase on the year before, with much of it coming from Gulf entities, raising emoluments concerns. Mounting perceptions of corruption, combined with unresolved crises in Iran and Israel-Palestine, are eroding trust among key partners in the Middle East. With the 2026 midterms approaching, these entanglements could represent a major political vulnerability and further undermine America’s already-strained standing in the region.
After the US-Israel-Iran war — and the strikes that followed the cease-fire — the Gulf states find themselves dangerously exposed. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by MEI Associate Fellow Gregory Gause to discuss the war’s impact on the Gulf, their partnership with the United States, and whether the turmoil of recent months will push Gulf leaders to reassess their alliances and international engagement.
The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.
This backgrounder provides an overview of how the Abraham Accords came about, the US interests involved, their economic and strategic consequences, and the prospects for further enlargement going forward.
After a decade of post-Arab Spring isolation, Turkey’s leaders have recognized that their ambition to position the country as an agenda-setter on the world stage requires active engagement in all directions. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of executive authority has centralized foreign policy decision-making and tied it to his domestic political priorities, transforming the country’s revisionist approach to one shaped primarily by personal and pragmatic interests.
As the Western Sahara conflict reaches its fifth decade, the territorial dispute remains unresolved and largely unknown. MEI’s Intissar Fakir unpacks the Western Sahara’s complex history and the rival claims by Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. She examines recent developments, such as President Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory and the collapse of a 30-year cease-fire, as well as the core questions that remain unanswered after half a century.
Podcasts
Middle East Focus
MEI’s flagship weekly podcast on US foreign policy and contemporary political and social issues in the Middle East.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
Asian Boat People and the Challenges of Migration Governance: A Source Country Perspective
To what extent does the boat migration phenomenon demonstrate the limits of migration governance? The purpose of this essay is to address this question by focusing on Bangladesh as a source country. There are compelling reasons for looking into the boat migration phenomenon through the lens of migration governance. Despite the growing contribution of foreign remittances to the national economy, establishing a fairer migration regime has emerged as a challenging task for Bangladesh. An analysis of the boat migration phenomenon provides an opportunity to investigate the nature of the problem and its underlying causes.
President Barack Obama’s Thursday visit to Riyadh to participate in the Gulf Cooperation Council summit comes one year after his meeting with GCC leaders in Camp David, and is an attempt to shore up an important relationship at a time when the two sides have been drifting apart over key regional issues.
Intra-Regional Trade: Potential Catalyst for Growth in the Middle East
Regional Cooperation Series
This Policy Paper is part of The Middle East Institute’s Regional Cooperation Series. Throughout 2016, MEI will be releasing several policy papers by renowned scholars and experts exploring possibilities to foster regional cooperation across an array of sectors. The purpose is to highlight the myriad benefits and opportunities associated with regional cooperation, and the high costs of the continued business-as-usual model of competition and intense rivalry.
"Nope, nope, nope": Australia's Response to the Refugees Crises in the Andaman Sea and in the Mediterranean in 2015
Australia has long prided itself on being one of the world’s premier destinations for refugees. In more recent years, however, the comparative size of Australia’s humanitarian program has declined in relation both to the country’s overall migrant intake and to Australia’s population.
Monday Briefing: Obama's Last GCC Summit, the Doha Oil Summit, and Iraq's Cabinet Change
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Jean-François Seznec, and Robert Ford provide analysis on recent events including President Obama’s final GCC summit, the Doha oil summit, and protests over Iraq’s cabinet turmoil.
Turkey’s ideologically inspired foreign policy is shifting to concentrate more directly on bolstering domestic nationalist support and highlight its regional religious identity. Ankara seeks to divert attention from its policy setbacks in Syria, as well as its internal and economic problems, while continuing to blunt U.S. efforts to crush ISIS.
When the Mongols invaded Baghdad in 1258, they laid siege to the city’s libraries, including the famed House of Wisdom—the largest in the world at the time.
A center for Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars, the destruction of the library remains one of the most famous examples of cultural loss during wartime.
Nine centuries later, Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal has taken the fate of the House of Wisdom as a starting point for a cultural project aimed at rebuilding the library of the Baghdad College of Fine Arts, destroyed in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
The Syrian Refugee Emergency: Implications for State Security and the International Humanitarian System
This essay depicts the Syrian refugee crisis as a symptom of the disorder which currently exists in the international system, describes the distinctive characteristics of the Syrian exodus, discusses the security implications of the crisis, and proposes four forms of international cooperation to safeguard the welfare of Syria’s refugees and to prevent the emergency from generating further upheaval in the Middle East.
The United States has been pushing Turkey for a campaign to eject ISIS from a 60-mile stretch of border that it still controls between the Syrian towns of Jarabulus and Azaz. However, the joint U.S.-Turkey operation has faced several roadblocks. From the outset, the United States and Turkey have had different goals. Washington wants Ankara to close the border, which is the sole remaining crossing point for ISIS militants.
#CultureUnderThreat Task Force Unveils Recommendations to Combat Antiquities Trafficking
WASHINGTON, DC (April 13, 2016) – Today the Antiquities Coalition, Asia Society, and Middle East Institute released #CultureUnderThreat: Recommendations for the U.S. Government, a series of steps for confronting growing threats to our cultural heritage and global security. Cultural racketeering – the global trade in looted antiquities – is a multibillion-dollar industry that funds organized crime and terrorists like Daesh (also known as ISIS).
Migration, Conflict and Security in the Post-2011 Landscape
This essay suggests lines of inquiry for a research agenda on why migration has arisen both as a consequence and a driver of conflict in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The essay sheds light on conflict-induced migration flows and their determinants in the post-2011 landscape; highlights how displacement has become both as a consequence and as a driver of new types of conflict and vulnerability; shows how migration flows and patterns have become closely intertwined with the construction of security and power; and raises the question of whether or not the post-2011 migrant crises have provided opportunities for political reform.
Sen. Ted Cruz, when asked at last month’s CNN town hall meeting to defend his controversial proposal to target Muslim neighborhoods in the United States, made a valuable distinction between Islam and Islamism.
Since the mid-2000s, Egypt has developed into a main transit country for irregular migrants, either to Libya or to Israel. Now, as the traditional paths have largely been closed, many migrants and refugees are blocked in Cairo and along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. Boarding a boat towards Europe is for many the only option to escape negligence, detention and abuse.
Tunisia is facing multiple pressures that, if not handled well by its current leaders, could undermine its stability as it continues to grapple with the post-Arab Spring era. The March 7 attack on Ben Gardane in Tunisia was a vivid reminder that the threat of ISIS and other extremist groups with safe haven in Libya is alive and well.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
