Donald Trump to visit Middle East on first official trip
Donald Trump will visit Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of his first official overseas trip. Photo: EPA
US President Donald Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this month as part of his first foreign trip, wading directly into the tangled diplomacy of Middle Eastern politics, a senior administration official says.
The swing through the Middle East, added to a trip that includes a NATO meeting in Brussels on May 25 and the Group of Seven summit in Sicily on May 26, suggests Trump is seeking to reinforce alliances with top US allies in the region.
Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had a testy relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Leaders in both nations viewed Mr Obama as less concerned with traditional alliances than with negotiating a deal to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr Trump has made forging peace in the Middle East and fighting Islamic State a focus of his administration’s foreign policy.
The President complained in an interview with Reuters last week that Saudi Arabia was not treating the United States fairly and Washington was losing a “tremendous amount of money” defending the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia’s powerful Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Mr Trump in Washington in March in a visit hailed by a senior Saudi advisor as a “historical turning point” in US-Saudi relations.
Mr Trump, who met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in February, has assigned his son-in-law Jared Kushner to oversee efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
The President also met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Wednesday, but gave no details of how he would revive long-stalled peace talks.
The first official overseas trip will also include a stop in Rome to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican.
The Vatican said the meeting would take place on Wednesday morning in the Apostolic Palace, an unusual day and an unusually early time for a head of state to meet the Pope.
Pope Francis holds his weekly general audience on Wednesday mornings, and senior Vatican sources said the meeting with the president will be squeezed in before.
Besides being leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, the Pope is a head of state.
During last year’s election campaign Pope Francis said a man with Trump’s views on immigration and his intention to build a wall on the border with Mexico is “not Christian”.
Trump, who grew up Presbyterian, retorted it was “disgraceful” for the Pope to question his faith.