Trump’s push for Abraham Accords expansion stuns Arab leaders

A surprise phone call from President Donald Trump to Arab and Muslim leaders, followed by a blunt public post, exposed how hard it may be to revive and expand the Abraham Accords. According to the report, Trump told leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain that they should join the accords and normalize ties with Israel. The reaction on the line was silence, and Trump even joked, asking whether they were still there. The call took place about two and a half weeks before the article’s publication on June 11, 2026.

Trump later wrote on Truth Social that he had spoken with those leaders and said it should be “mandatory” for them to join the accords, adding that his representatives were instructed to work on expanding the agreement. The article says the initiative reflects Trump’s renewed effort to enlarge his signature Middle East achievement from his first term, but that the plan now collides with Arab resistance, Israel’s unwillingness to compromise, and the continuing fallout from the war with Iran.

Former U.S. State Department official Barbara Leaf said people on the call were initially stunned, including leaders from Jordan and Egypt, which already have peace ties with Israel. British academic Dr. Andreas Craig said the idea seemed spontaneous and lacked a clear strategy, though Trump could still push it. Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja Asif was the only leader cited as publicly rejecting the idea, saying Islamabad had not sought to join a deal that conflicts with its basic principles.

The article argues that Saudi Arabia’s position has hardened sharply since October 7, 2023. Before the Hamas attack and the Gaza war, Riyadh was moving toward normalization, with Washington trying to broker a deal and then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken due to travel to Riyadh on October 10, 2023. Today, however, Saudi officials reportedly demand real, irreversible steps toward a Palestinian state, and public opinion in the kingdom has turned sharply against Israel. A Washington Institute poll from August 2025 found 99 percent of Saudis viewed normal relations with Israel negatively, up from 20 percent in 2023 and 13 percent in 2025 for those who saw the Abraham Accords positively.

Craig said Saudi leaders now see Israel as unpredictable and unrestrained, while Leaf said the Israeli strike in Doha was “the last straw” for Gulf officials. Both she and Craig were pessimistic that Trump’s pressure would work soon, though former Israeli National Security Council chief Meir Ben Shabbat argued the war has instead made Israel more attractive and that future normalization remains possible, possibly under a new framework rather than the current Abraham Accords brand.