Trump phone call escalated Saudi-UAE rift and prompted December bombing

President Trump’s November phone call with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, in which the American president relayed a request he said came from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, set off a diplomatic rupture between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that by December culminated in Saudi forces bombing an alleged Emirati weapons shipment bound for Yemen, officials say.

Four people briefed on the call by Emirati officials said Mr. Trump told Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed that the crown prince had asked him to impose sanctions on the Emirates over its support for an armed group fighting in Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces. Emirati briefers interpreted the message as a direct attack on the UAE’s regional posture, and senior Emirati officials reported feeling betrayed by their Gulf partner.

Riyadh has offered a different explanation. A Saudi official said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked President Trump to target the RSF itself, imposing additional sanctions on the Sudanese paramilitary group to choke off its outside support rather than punishing the UAE directly. That official said Saudi leaders hoped pressure on the RSF would prompt the UAE to pull back and help bring an end to the fighting in Sudan.

A U.S. official pushed back on the Emirati framing, telling reporters that Prince Mohammed never asked President Trump to impose sanctions on the Emirates, though the official did not comment on the content of the call itself. The competing accounts underscore how a single diplomatic exchange can be interpreted as either a coordinated pressure tactic or a grievous betrayal among allies.

Emirati officials also said Mr. Trump sought to reassure Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, telling him that "his friends the Saudis were out to get him, but that the U.S. stands behind him," a characterization they provided of what Mr. Trump said on the call. The episode followed public signals earlier in the month when Mr. Trump, hosting the Saudi crown prince in Washington, declared in a speech that "His Majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan. We're going to start working on it."

The dispute spilled beyond diplomatic notes. By December, Saudi forces struck a shipment that Saudi authorities alleged came from the UAE and was destined for Yemen, an action that reflects how Gulf competition is now playing out on proxy battlefields in Sudan and Yemen. Saudi accusations that the UAE sent weapons to a UAE-backed faction in Yemen were denied by Emirati officials, and Riyadh subsequently withdrew support for that faction, according to the accounts reviewed.

The confrontation poses practical problems for U.S. policy in the Middle East. Washington’s leverage on issues ranging from Iran to Gaza depends in part on coordinated Gulf backing. The emergence of a public rift between two of America’s closest Arab partners complicates those calculations and elevates the risk that bilateral grievances will be settled through military action rather than diplomacy.

Accounts of what was requested on the November call diverge sharply and rest largely on anonymous briefings and a small set of official statements. No contemporaneous transcript or on-the-record confirmation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, or President Trump about the call’s contents has been released. The competing narratives and the December bombing make clear that the Gulf’s intra-regional politics are increasingly consequential for conflicts across the region.