The Abraham Accords were Donald Trump's signature foreign policy achievement of his first term—a series of normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab states that bypassed the Palestinian question entirely. Now, six years later, he wants more countries to sign on. The ambition is understandable; the execution will be considerably harder.
The original accords, signed in 2020, brought the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco into formal diplomatic relations with Israel. The deals were transactional: the UAE got F-35 jets, Morocco got U.S. recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara, Sudan got removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list. The Palestinians got nothing, which was rather the point. Trump's team argued that Arab states no longer cared about the Palestinian cause the way their grandparents did, and that economic integration with Israel was the future.
The Saudi question remains unanswered
The crown jewel was always Saudi Arabia. The kingdom came tantalizingly close to normalization before the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel derailed everything. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had been negotiating a sweeping deal that would have included a U.S. defense treaty and civilian nuclear cooperation. The price was some gesture toward Palestinian statehood—a demand that has only hardened as Gaza's destruction has inflamed Arab public opinion.
Trump's team believes the current moment offers an opening. The ongoing negotiations with Iran have reshuffled regional priorities; Gulf states that once saw Tehran as an existential threat may now calculate that American attention is finite and Israeli partnership more valuable. But MBS has not budged publicly on the Palestinian condition, and domestic Saudi opinion—however suppressed—matters more than it did in 2020.
The candidate pool is thin
Beyond Saudi Arabia, the list of plausible new signatories is short. Oman has long maintained quiet ties with Israel and could formalize them with minimal controversy. Qatar, which hosts Hamas's political leadership, is a non-starter. Kuwait's parliament remains vocally pro-Palestinian. Iraq and Lebanon are out of the question. Indonesia and Malaysia, sometimes mentioned as stretch targets, would face enormous domestic backlash.
The administration has floated the idea of deepening existing accords rather than adding new members—more trade, more security cooperation, more normalization of the normalization. This is achievable but less dramatic than the signing ceremonies Trump clearly craves.
Our take
The Abraham Accords were clever diplomacy that correctly identified a shift in Arab elite attitudes toward Israel. But the framework's central bet—that the Palestinian issue could be indefinitely deferred—looks shakier after eighteen months of war in Gaza. Trump can probably squeeze one or two more signatures out of the region, particularly if the Iran talks produce something durable. But the grand realignment he envisions requires either Saudi Arabia to abandon its Palestinian conditions or Israel to offer something it has shown no willingness to give. Neither seems imminent.
