Trump Names Lebanon-Born Billionaire as Senior Middle East Advisor
President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Massad Boulos, a Lebanon-born billionaire, as his senior White House advisor for Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, Al Jazeera reports.
The announcement, made Sunday, follows a series of other high-profile appointments shaping Trump’s Middle East policy, though the exact parameters of Boulos’s role remain undefined.
Trump cited Boulos’s successful outreach to Arab American voters during the election campaign as the primary reason for the appointment. Boulos, the father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, leveraged dissatisfaction among Arab Americans with President Biden’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly during the recent Gaza war and Lebanon incursion.
This appointment comes against a backdrop of conflicting priorities. While Trump repeatedly promised to de-escalate the conflict in Gaza, he has also enjoyed strong support from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government. His first term was marked by staunch pro-Israel policies: moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, brokering normalization agreements with Arab nations, and allowing for the expansion of Israeli settlements—actions considered illegal under international law. This pattern seems set to continue, given the appointment of Mike Huckabee, a strong proponent of Israeli settlements, as ambassador to Israel.
The election results showcased a dramatic shift in Arab and Muslim American voting patterns, with a significant move away from the Democratic party. In Dearborn, Michigan—home to the largest Arab American population in the US — Kamala Harris received only half the votes garnered by Biden in 2020. Trump secured over 42% of the vote in the city, compared to Biden’s just over 36%.
Boulos, for his part, has remained largely reticent about his personal views on Middle Eastern politics, offering no clear articulation of his own policy positions. Born into a politically connected Christian family in Lebanon, he relocated to Texas as a teenager and later became involved in his family’s business ventures in Nigeria. He has publicly refuted reports that he ran for parliament in Lebanon in 2009 and denied close ties to Lebanese politician Suleiman Frangieh, who has links to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah. However, he confirmed his acquaintance with many Lebanese Christian leaders. He describes himself as a long-time Republican who actively supported Trump in 2016, a relationship further cemented by his son’s marriage to Trump’s daughter.
This appointment follows Trump’s announcement that he will nominate Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as US ambassador to France.
