Last week brought an unusually dense stretch of American diplomacy on the Middle East. On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, President Donald Trump met representatives of 12 countries: the six GCC member states, alongside Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkiye. The following day, Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews for a three-day state visit. Both took place with the Strait of Hormuz still closed to normal traffic, after a June memorandu
