How the UAE keeps the US close while hedging against it

The United Arab Emirates has struck a sweet spot. It is hedging against the US even as it leverages good ties in Washington to load up on AI chips and assert itself in hotspots from Yemen to Sudan that put it in conflict with the rest of the US’s Arab partners.

The UAE is pushing ahead with sensitive projects linked to China, the US’s top rival, but US and Arab officials tell Middle East Eye it is enduring little cost for doing so.

MEE revealed recently that US intelligence assessed members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were deployed at a key military base in Abu Dhabi.

After publication of that report, one US official and one person briefed on the matter told MEE that China watchers posted to the US embassy in Abu Dhabi were still suspicious of Beijing’s activities at Khalifa Port, where China’s state-owned Cosco operates a terminal and US intelligence has suggested the PLA was active.

“The UAE has taken a few steps back, but not completely written off their cooperation with China. What that tells you is that the Emiratis feel they can withstand any US pressure,” Cinzia Bianco, a Gulf expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told MEE. 

During the Biden administration, some senior officials became so alarmed about the UAE’s growing independence from Washington that they wanted to pursue a wide review of the relationship with the Gulf state. The effort was led by Barbara Leaf, the top State Department official in the Middle East. In the end, the report fizzled out, a former senior US official told MEE.

“It ended up very condensed, looking at the UAE’s role in Libya, but sidestepped all the really sensitive stuff about China,” the former official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

'The UAE has been able to hedge with China but insulate itself from the pushback in Washington'

- Anna Jacobs, International Crisis Group

When President Donald Trump returned to office this year, he made his first foreign visit to the Gulf region. Some Middle East watchers took note of the fact that Trump enjoyed full state dinners in Saudi Arabia and Qatar but a truncated trip in the UAE in May.

Several US officials attributed that to tensions over the UAE’s tech ties to China.

But last month, the UAE’s state-owned AI tech titan, G42, was given the go-ahead in Washington to purchase tens of thousands of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, along with its state-owned Saudi rival, Humain.

The fact that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE were given equal weighting caught the attention of some analysts.

“The UAE has been able to hedge with China but insulate itself from the pushback in Washington in ways other countries could not imagine,” Anna Jacobs, at the International Crisis Group, told MEE.

Too good for Nato and the F-35

The contrast between the UAE’s approach to Washington and that of its Gulf neighbours and rivals, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, has been brought into stark relief this year.

After Israel bombed Hamas negotiators in Doha in September, Qatari officials sought to move closer to the US and downplay any murmurs of tensions, including over the US’s advanced knowledge of the Israeli attack. Already designated a major non-Nato ally, Qatar upped its military cooperation with Washington and elicited an executive order from Trump pledging to defend it against future attacks.

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Not to be outdone, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Washington, DC, last month, his kingdom was named a major non-Nato ally. Perhaps more importantly, Saudi Arabia hashed out a defence cooperation agreement with the US that current and former US officials told MEE will speed up arms sales.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s designations as major non-Nato allies mean the Arabian Gulf is now blanketed with states carrying that placard of cosiness to Washington. The three exceptions are: war-torn Yemen, Oman, which prides itself as a nimble mediator, and the UAE.

“The UAE thinks it is above things like major non-Nato ally,” a western official in the Gulf told MEE. “It doesn’t sink to that game.”

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are all home to US military bases, but for years, the Emiratis have placed the most stringent conditions on how the US uses that access, the former US official told MEE.

The Al Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi hosts the US’s 380th Air Expeditionary Force.

The UAE’s go-it-alone approach is evident when you compare its stalled bid to acquire F-35 warplanes from the US and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh secured Trump’s approval to purchase the advanced jet fighters last month, even though it refused to normalise ties with Israel, at least for now.

The UAE was promised the F-35 in return for establishing diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020, but the deal stalled over US concerns about its military ties to China. Last year, the UAE said it was not interested in acquiring F-35s, in part because of the restrictions the US placed on the sale.

“Of all the Gulf countries, the UAE is most serious about its strategic hedging,” Jacobs said. “Saudi Arabia and Qatar are investing long-term in the relationship with the US, whereas the UAE has been hedging more, but that doesn’t seem to bother Washington.”

Going it alone

On some files, the Trump administration appears to be much closer to Doha, Ankara and Riyadh. For example, Trump has credited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with convincing him to lift sanctions on Syria and bring its new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, into the US fold. The UAE is one of the countries most sceptical of Sharaa’s Islamist roots.

After the Arab Spring, Washington became accustomed to looking at the Middle East through the prism of two blocs, a Saudi and Emirati one opposed to the toppling of old regimes like Hosni Mubarak’s in Egypt, and a Turkish and Qatari one that was more comfortable angling for influence in the wake of popular protests.

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This week, a separatist armed group in southern Yemen backed by the UAE went on the offensive against forces backed by Saudi Arabia in Hadramout, a resource-rich province in eastern Yemen that Riyadh has long considered its sphere of influence and vital outlet to the Indian Ocean.

In Sudan, the region’s other simmering proxy war, MEE was the first to reveal that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman planned to lobby against the UAE at the White House in November, a sharp escalation that surprised many Gulf watchers who say the region’s monarchs are sensitive about airing their dirty laundry in Washington.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar back the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Emirati-backed Rapid Support Forces. The UAE has backed the RSF throughout the war using supply lines that run through southeastern Libya, Chad and, increasingly, the port of Bosaso, on Somalia's Puntland coast. Abu Dhabi continues to deny the allegations.

The UAE’s balancing act, analysts and current and former diplomats say, can be attributed to its slick diplomacy and deep pockets. For almost twenty years, the UAE’s ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, has doled out funds to think-tanks and parties while hobnobbing with Washington powerbrokers.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia play the same game, analysts say, but the UAE’s relationship with Israel has endeared it to politicians and US officials on both sides of the political aisle.

“The UAE does get more leeway than Saudi Arabia and Qatar because it is Israel’s golden boy,” a current US official told MEE.