'No Abraham Accords, no deal': Trump warns peace talks may fail without Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar recognising Israel

President Donald Trump warned that he may walk away from a pending peace deal unless Gulf Arab nations agree to formally recognise Israel.

Speaking to reporters during a fiery White House Cabinet meeting, Trump declared that regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates “owe it to” the United States to join the Abraham Accords, hinting that the entire Iranian settlement hinges on their compliance.

“I’m not sure we should make the deal if they don’t,” Trump said flatly when pressed on whether the regional peace pact was contingent on Arab states normalising ties with Israel. “You want to know the truth? If they don’t sign to join the Abraham Accords, I don’t know… I think those countries owe that to us, to be honest.”

A high-stakes linkage

The president’s latest comments build on a massive diplomatic ultimatum he issued earlier in the week on Truth Social, where he stated it should be “mandatory” for a sweeping list of nations, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, to sign onto the accords simultaneously alongside any Iran settlement.

The sudden linkage effectively merges two incredibly complex foreign policy challenges: halting the regional war with Tehran and forcing a historic diplomatic realignment between Israel and the Sunni Arab world.

Trump argued that the Gulf states, which found themselves directly in Iran’s military crosshairs after Washington launched its offensive against the Islamic Republic, have a responsibility to support American diplomatic objectives.

“After all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together… it should start with the immediate signing by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and everybody else should follow suit. If they don’t, they should not be part of this Deal, ” said President Donald Trump.

While the UAE and Bahrain are already signatories to the 2020 Abraham Accords, Trump’s pressure on them appears aimed at securing deeper integration, while pushing non-members like Riyadh and Doha to take the plunge.

Resistance in the Gulf

The White House’s transactional approach is already colliding with rigid regional realities. Saudi Arabia has consistently maintained that it will not normalize relations with Israel without a clear, irreversible path toward an independent Palestinian state, a condition that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to reject.

Plus, regional analysts warn that tying an immediate ceasefire to the highly unpopular Abraham Accords could cause the entire peace architecture to collapse, potentially sending the US back to the battlefront.

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When journalists asked Trump if he was ready to walk away and resume heavy military operations if his demands weren’t met, the president remained defiant. “We’re not satisfied with [the talks] yet, but we will be,” Trump warned. “Either that, or we’ll have to just finish the job. I don’t think they have a choice.”

The internal friction comes amid conflicting reports regarding a potential Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) to end the conflict. Iranian state media claimed earlier this week that a tentative deal had been struck to lift the US naval blockade on Iranian ports in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The White House immediately slammed those reports as “complete fabrication,” reiterating that the US has not agreed to relax its grip without massive concessions from Tehran, including the total surrender of its enriched uranium stockpile.