WSJ What’s News - Trump’s Bromance Diplomacy With Arab Leaders

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

A.M. Edition for May 16. We’ll get the latest from White House reporter Alex Leary in the United Arab Emirates as President Trump winds down a four-day trip to the Middle East. Plus, a veteran FAA air-traffic controller, shaken after averting a midair collision, opens up about stress, staffing and tech problems. And with two weeks until hurricane season, the new head of FEMA admits to not having a fully formed disaster-response plan. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump wraps up a gilded Middle East tour that put bromance diplomacy with golf leaders on full display. Plus foreign direct investment into Europe plunges, and a senior air traffic controller tells the Journal about the high-stress job of managing Newark's airspace. You go straight into survival mode to separate those aircraft and make sure they don't hit. And then when that's over, then it really hits you. It's Friday, May 16th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal.

And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Hundreds of thousands of commuters across New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia are facing disruption this morning as NJ Transit workers went on strike just after midnight, following a years-long battle over wages for train engineers. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Union had rejected a deal giving train engineers virtually identical wages to those working for the Long Island Railroad, but without blowing up the transit agency's budget. Like many mass transit systems across the nation, NJ Transit is facing a sobering fiscal reality.

That is a challenge we must balance with paying our engineers and every NJ Transit worker what they deserve. While NJ Transit and the union are at odds over wages for just 450 workers, officials argue they can't strike a narrow deal on compensation that could set a precedent for other negotiations. The strike could snarl commutes for more than 350,000 people, with NJ Transit saying a substitute bus service can carry just 20% of current rail customers. NJ Transit and Murphy have called for New Jersey commuters to work from home if possible.

Meanwhile, as the Federal Aviation Administration contends with equipment problems and staffing shortages at the Philadelphia facility that manages Newark, New Jersey's airspace, a veteran air traffic controller there has spoken to the journal about working conditions after he helped to narrowly avert a mid-air collision earlier this month. Jonathan Stewart took stress-related trauma leave after the incident, a benefit available for controllers. He said his colleagues aren't to blame for recent delays and disruptions in and out of Newark and pushed back against a recent letter to

customers from United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby that said the airline canceled flights after controllers quote walked off the job. Hopefully he misspoke because the controllers did not walk off the job. Walking off the job implies that they of their own free will left and refused to do their job. There's not a single controller in Newark, here at C, to the best of my knowledge, that does not love their job. We would like to have more resources to effectively do our job.

Yes, that is the case. But to say that someone would basically game the system and take trauma leave when they were not traumatized is insulting at best and just, quite frankly, misinformed. No way, shape or form was that what happened. Nobody walked off the job of their own free will. They had to be taken out of position and relieved of duty because they were not mentally fit to do it anymore at that point because of the trauma that was involved. A United spokesman pointed to Kirby's more recent statements calling for better equipment

and working conditions for air traffic controllers. The FAA said it's pursuing short and long-term fixes for controllers who oversee Newark airspace, including installing a temporary backup telecommunication system, more reliable connections, and a new radar system based in Philadelphia. And you can hear the full interview with Jonathan Stewart in today's episode of The Journal podcast wherever you listen. And we are exclusively reporting that just two weeks ahead of hurricane season, the newly appointed chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency doesn't yet have a fully formed disaster response plan.

David Richardson acknowledged as much in private meetings and has told staff he'd share a hurricane plan with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after he completes it late next week. The agency has been struggling with a steep decline in its workforce, turmoil in its upper ranks and no clear direction about the future of the agency according to more than a half dozen current FEMA employees and documents reviewed by the journal. President Trump signed an executive order in January that established a FEMA review council to overhaul the agency.

Coming up, we'll get the latest from White House reporter Alex Leary in the United Arab Emirates as President Trump winds down a four-day trip to the Middle East. And we'll hear about how the Trump administration is targeting the EU's rules protecting online users in defense of free speech. Those stories after the break. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions.

Learn more at visa.ca slash fintech. President Trump is making his way back to the U.S. today after a four-day visit to the Middle East, punctuated by announcements of investment deals, arms sales, and new diplomatic openings. Journal White House reporter Alex Leary is in Abu Dhabi. Alex, the thing that stood out from this trip seems to be the extent to which we could really see Trump's closeness with Arab rulers, something you and your colleagues really drew a line under in your reporting in the last few days.

Why did you think that's so important? It's very important because it shows sort of a shift in Trump's thinking. He has, of course, roiled a lot of relationships around the world, particularly with European leaders that have traditionally been the top allies of Washington. Trump is looking for kind of more cordial relations and he is drawn to the wealth and the glitz and he was treated at

every step of this four-day trip with lavish ceremonies and that feeds into Trump's sense of purpose. We kind of call it bromance diplomacy and it was on full display. He told Saudi Kham Prince Mohammed bin Salman, I like you too much at the airport when Trump was leaving. Both sort of tapped their fist on their hearts and pointed at each other. Last night he told the president of UAE, you're a magnificent man. He repeatedly referred to his counterpart's strength and their attractiveness, their toughness. So Trump really likes the optics of these leaders that he met and how they present themselves.

These rulers all seem to follow somewhat of a similar playbook, did they not, in how they negotiated with Trump. What did that actually get these Arab countries? And second, might that set a tone that you'll be watching as we look to see how others engage with Trump after this trip? Absolutely. This flattery is designed to get Trump's not just his attention, but his loyalty and his validation on the world stage as the Gulf becomes more increasingly powerful and wealthy. And it's looking to transform itself from not just oil rich, but also into technology and AI.

And so having Trump's attention and focus on this region is a huge win for them. I'm curious, since you've been traveling in close proximity to the whole Trump team this week, to what extent has the political blowback that we reported on coming from Washington over this perceived transactionalism with these Arab leaders, notably as it relates to the Qatar potential gift of a $400 million plane to be used as Air Force One. Did that sort of register with his team? Yeah, absolutely. That's been a sort of a backdrop of this entire trip in the plane news has not been well timed. That story broke just as Trump was headed over and so it's been really a dominant story back in the US. Trump and his team are just trying to plow through it and they're hopeful that the headlines they're getting from massive investment deals like it's such as the one that with Boeing, that that'll kind of overshadow that. And I know from talking to several of Trump's aides that Trump is personally really annoyed by the coverage that he feels like it's detracting from his otherwise successful trip here in the Middle East. trip here in the Middle East.

Finally, Alex, is there anything this trip didn't clear up? We began the week talking to Stephen Kalin. He was sort of saying maybe we could look at updates on efforts to get Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. Maybe we'd hear more about the situation in Gaza. If those things were a big topic of discussion, I'm not sure they really elbowed their way into the headlines very much. Right. Yeah.

So some major issues still outstanding and some really important ones too. No real progress on Gaza, for example, and also the war in Ukraine. Initially, this visit was going to be sort of seen as a victory lap that Trump was going to be here, Putin and Zelensky potentially and work out a peace deal that faded away. And Trump has been asked repeatedly about, you know, what's going on with that and potential meeting in Turkey on Thursday that kind of fell apart, something that Trump is not eager to address. He's been annoyed. I was on Air Force One yesterday traveling to the UAE and a reporter asked Trump about whether he was disappointed with the delegation that Russia was sending to Turkey and Trump sort of snapped a little bit at the question and quickly

referred back to the trillions of dollars he says he's obtaining for the U.S. here in these Gulf states. Alex Leary is a Wall Street Journal White House reporter and joined us from Abu Dhabi today. Alex, safe travels back to the U.S. Thank you so much for the update. My pleasure. Thank you so much for the update. My pleasure.

The Trump administration is targeting the EU's rules to protect online users, framing a new pressure campaign as a defense of free speech and U.S. commercial interests. We exclusively report that last week, the State Department asked its offices around Europe for quote, examples of government efforts to limit freedom of speech and quote, according to a copy of the request reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, with another department communication seeming to refer to the EU's digital rules as part of the quote, global censorship industrial complex. The EU's Digital Services Act adopted in 2022 requires that digital platforms show

they're taking steps to stop the spread of illegal content as well as the use of disinformation to manipulate elections. EU officials say the law, which only applies in the EU, doesn't threaten free speech and is designed to protect Europeans' basic rights and to keep children safe online. Meanwhile, Europe is struggling to attract global capital with foreign direct investment to the region dropping to its lowest level in nine years, according to accounting firm EY. The UK, France and Germany all saw double digit declines, though they remain the three largest recipients of inflows, with London holding on to the title of Europe's most attractive city for investment.

EY's Julie Taglant told me that 37% of businesses surveyed said they had scaled back their European investment plans, citing high energy costs, a sense of diminished growth prospects, and broader geopolitical uncertainty. If there's anything that kills an investment, in my mind, it's uncertainty from a political environment. Investors like to know that they can calculate with the tax regime, they can calculate with the laws, they can calculate with export controls and tariffs and understand what's coming

so that their business case is solid. If you can't do a business case, it gets very difficult to plan for future investment. There are some positives though, as Central, Eastern and Southern Europe all saw a surge in FDI thanks to cheaper energy and labor costs as well as ample available land. A majority of respondents also said they expect Europe will become increasingly attractive for investment over the long haul, especially for AI and renewables. But in the meantime, Taglen told me European money is likely to be what's driving growth.

Investment from the U.S. specifically into Europe is at its lowest point in over a decade. It's shrunk from being nearly a quarter, 24 percent of all FDI came from the U.S. That's down to 18%. And that really shows that Europe is really becoming less dependent on the U.S. And in fact, Europe for Europe investment has grown. That's a positive trend. That's up 55%. That aligns to a lot of the dialogue that we see on a geopolitical scale and follows that trend of Europe investing in

itself, building its own defense industry, getting its skates on. And the picture is turning gloomier in major Asian economies as well. Data out this morning showed Japan's economy shrinking 0.2 percent in the first quarter, the first GDP decline in a year. And as our Tokyo bureau chief Jason Douglas explains, more economic pain lies ahead. The first quarter has all been scrambled by the start of the trade war. People were rushing to export things, people were rushing to import things, and this has made a mess of lots of countries and economic figures for the US shrank in the first quarter of the year.

Japan has also shrunk. South the US shrank in the first quarter of the year. Japan has also shrunk. South Korea also shrank, but I think the real action is yet to come. The tariffs that Donald Trump levied on autos, the reciprocal tariffs that he wants to put on, all those were announced in April. So I think it's going to be the rest of the year where we start to see the effects of the trade war really start to hit home in Asia. For some economies like South Korea and Japan that export a lot of cars, the 25% tariffs that Trump has levied on automobiles are going to be pretty painful. And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning.

Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Otherwise have a great weekend. Thanks for listening.