Gulf state officials plan to press President Trump on Tuesday to avoid any escalation with Iran and pursue diplomacy instead.
The delegation from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is expected to meet with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, according to Bloomberg. The group includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, key American allies whose economies have been battered by the ongoing war.
Those Gulf nations are seeking an off-ramp to a conflict that has disrupted the Persian Gulf’s economy and unleashed chaos through Iran’s missile and drone assaults. Their critical infrastructure sits squarely in the crosshairs, and Tehran has already warned of widespread attacks on U.S. Troops and America’s allies in the region if the war heats up again.
Trump has recently doubled down on his threats to destroy Iran, which has refused to reopen the Strait of Hormuz until Washington meets its demands. The Gulf states, which had originally urged him not to start the war at all, previously managed to pull him back from the brink.
The president said he called off a major attack on Iran last month after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar all told him that a deal to reopen the strait was within reach. That deal never materialized, and the conflict has since spilled into Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels have seized control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, another vital oil route on the Arabian Peninsula.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued its own warning this week even as it left the door open to talks. An IRGC spokesman said Tuesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency:
“If our national interests require us to fight, we must fight. If our national interests require us to negotiate alongside the war, we must negotiate.”
The spokesman’s comments came as Tehran’s economy continues to crater under U.S. Sanctions and runaway inflation.
Trump’s current stance remains difficult to read. Over the weekend, he floated the possibility of a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the UN General Assembly this week, suggesting a potential diplomatic opening even as his threats of annihilation hang in the air.
The GCC’s Tuesday intervention marks the latest attempt by America’s Gulf partners to steer Trump toward negotiation rather than escalation. Their previous success in swaying him last month offers some hope, though the collapse of that promised Strait of Hormuz deal underscores how fragile such diplomatic off-ramps have proven.
The war’s expansion to Yemen has only deepened the Gulf states’ anxiety. The Houthi takeover of Bab al-Mandeb threatens a second chokepoint for global oil shipments, compounding the economic damage from the Hormuz closure and raising the stakes for any further escalation.
Trump’s threat that “a civilization will die tonight” if no deal is reached, reported earlier in the crisis, now sits uneasily alongside his suggestion of a possible face-to-face with Pezeshkian. Which impulse prevails may hinge in part on what he hears from the GCC delegation in New York.
The UN General Assembly meetings continue through the week.