President Trump's demand that Gulf and Arab countries normalize relations with Israel as part of U.S.-Iran peace talks has encountered significant resistance from regional partners, with Pakistan rejecting the idea outright and other nations remaining notably silent on the proposal.
The president first raised expanding the Abraham Accords during phone calls with leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain. According to Axios reporting, Trump's pitch was initially met with silence, prompting the president to ask if the leaders were still on the call.
Trump has framed an expansion of the accords as potentially blunting Iran's regional threat while achieving a key foreign policy priority for his second term. The 2020 Abraham Accords brokered diplomatic ties between Israel and both the UAE and Bahrain—countries that had never been in direct conflict with Israel but lacked formal relations.
What the Left Is Saying
Progressive Democrats have expressed skepticism about tying Iran nuclear negotiations to regional normalization demands, arguing the approach could derail talks aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has cautioned that adding preconditions to U.S.-Iran negotiations increases the risk of diplomatic failure. "The goal is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon," he said in a statement. "Adding political demands unrelated to the nuclear file makes that harder to achieve."
Human rights advocates have also raised concerns about the timing, noting that Israel's ongoing military campaign in Gaza following Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack has complicated prospects for any regional diplomatic breakthrough. The conflict has resulted in significant Palestinian casualties and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
"Normalization talks require partners willing to engage," said a spokesperson for the Arab American Institute. "The devastation in Gaza has made that kind of engagement politically impossible for Arab governments."
What the Right Is Saying
Conservative Republicans and hawkish Israel supporters have largely praised Trump's approach, arguing it could reshape Middle East alliances against Iranian influence.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the strategy "brilliant" in a post on X. "I expect our Arab allies to embrace this, as well as our friends in Israel, focusing on this task as failure is not an option," he wrote.
Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, published an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post calling for expanding the Abraham Accords into an "Alliance" to counter Iran. "Imagine an integrated regional air defense system connecting Israel and Gulf allies against Iranian missiles and drones," he wrote. "Imagine joint investment funds fueling AI, semiconductors, biotech, energy infrastructure, and next-generation defense systems."
Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general with the Israel Defense Forces and former national security adviser to Netanyahu, argued during a Jewish Institute for National Security of America panel that regional cooperation against Iran should not be contingent on formal diplomatic recognition. "There is certainly a level of tactical cooperation between all these countries and Israel," he noted. "That is the new normal, but it is not normalization."
What the Numbers Show
The Abraham Accords, signed in September 2020, established diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab nations: the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The agreements marked the first Arab-Israeli peace treaties in over 25 years.
A potential deal between the United States and Iran reportedly would extend the current April 8 ceasefire for at least 60 days and open negotiations focused on Iran's enriched uranium stockpile and nuclear program, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The tentative agreement does not appear to include Abraham Accords expansion as a component.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has repeatedly stated that a "credible pathway" to Palestinian statehood would be required for any normalization agreement with Israel—a position that remains unchanged despite recent diplomatic efforts.
Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif explicitly rejected participation in the accords, telling local television: "Right now no initiative in this regard has been taken by us, nor has anyone asked us."
The Bottom Line
Trump's demand for Abraham Accords expansion as part of Iran nuclear talks appears to have stalled, with key regional players either rejecting the proposal outright or offering no public response. A tentative U.S.-Iran agreement reportedly pending presidential approval does not include the normalization demands.
The gap between Trump's ambitions and regional realities highlights the difficulty of using nuclear negotiations as leverage for broader diplomatic goals. Saudi Arabia's insistence on Palestinian statehood as a precondition, combined with Qatar's animosity toward Netanyahu following Israeli military operations in Doha, suggests the accords expansion faces significant obstacles regardless of how U.S.-Iran talks proceed.