Trump’s Israel-Morocco Deal Leaves Biden With Another Mess
Like so many of Trump’s foreign-policy decisions, the U.S. loses much more than it gains from the bargain.
Quid pro quo.
Photographer: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP
Even by the standards of the Trump administration, the trilateral arrangement between the U.S., Israel and Morocco over the disputed Western Sahara was a crude quid pro quo. The president made no effort to hide the artlessness of the deal when he declared on Thursday that the U.S. would recognize Morocco’s long-contested claim to the minerals-rich region.
Why was he departing from the established American position and the decades-old international consensus, which requires the Saharawi people to decide their future? Trump’s specious justification was that the deal was recompense for Rabat’s recognition of the U.S. in 1777, and that it would bring “peace and prosperity” to the region. But he’d already given away the real reason in announcing the kingdom had agreed to diplomatic relations with Israel.