For nearly four years, US President Donald Trump has torn up America’s foreign policy handbook – for better and for worse. The implications, both at home and abroad, have been staggering. Most recently, the Trump administration was lauded for facilitating the Abraham Accord, the normalisation of relations with Israel by the UAE and Bahrain. In exchange, Israel’s government agreed to halt its plan to annex Palestinian land. But Mr Trump’s days in the White House are now numbered. By the end of January 2021, a new administration will take the reins of US foreign policy. This week on Beyond the Headlines, we hear from Sanam Vakil, deputy director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, and Nasser Saidi, Lebanon’s former minister of economy and former vice governor of the Lebanese central bank, about what will change for the Middle East and what will remain the same when Joe Biden takes his seat in the Oval Office.
