UAE’s US envoy urges Washington to be more competitive

The US needs to boost its competitiveness in the UAE and Washington must focus on curbing Iran’s actions across the Middle East, Yousef Al Otaiba, the Emirates’ ambassador to Washington, said on Wednesday.

Speaking to former US national security adviser HR McMaster, Mr Al Otaiba said the US and other nations no longer had the luxury of being able to just “come in and bid for oil concessions or technology".

“You have competition from China, from Europe, from India. The US has to come in and compete,” he told Mr McMaster in a discussion hosted by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

In response to a question referencing the UAE’s purchase of defence systems, Mr Otaiba said the US can’t say no to the UAE but then protest when Abu Dhabi looks for alternative vendors.

“You are telling us that you won’t commit to a relationship but you don’t want us seeing other people. It doesn’t work,” Mr Al Otaiba said.

“Just recognise that it’s a much more competitive landscape and you need to come in and compete. We want you to compete, we want to work with you, so just pay attention to us. We want to do more business with you.”

In response to a question about top security priorities -- from a UAE and regional perspective -- Mr Al Otaiba said Iran’s behavior was a top regional priority and “not just the nuclear file, but also extremism. We cannot continue to just ignore extremist voices and hate speech".

Mr McMaster was appointed as former president Donald Trump’s national security adviser in March 2017. He resigned a year later amid foreign policy disagreements with Mr Trump and is now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in California.