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Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Tues­day held out Sau­di Ara­bia as a mod­el for a reimag­ined Mid­dle East, us­ing the first ma­jor for­eign trip of his term to em­pha­sise the promise of eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty over in­sta­bil­i­ty in a re­gion reel­ing from mul­ti­ple wars.

Of­fer­ing part­ner­ship to long­time foes, Trump said he would move to lift sanc­tions on Syr­ia and nor­malise re­la­tions with the new gov­ern­ment led by a for­mer in­sur­gent, and he tout­ed the U.S. role in bring­ing about a frag­ile cease­fire with Yemen’s Houthis. But Trump al­so in­di­cat­ed his pa­tience was not end­less, as he urged Iran to make a new nu­clear deal with the U.S. or risk se­vere eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary con­se­quences.

With his car­rot and stick ap­proach, Trump gave the clear­est in­di­ca­tion yet of his vi­sion for re­mak­ing the re­gion, where goals of fos­ter­ing hu­man rights and democ­ra­cy pro­mo­tion have been re­placed by an em­pha­sis on eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty.