Senior Resident Scholar Karen E. Young commented on U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s national security strategy for The National:

The NSS prioritises economic growth as a security priority, but labels other countries with state-led growth models as unfair and aggressive competitors. The liberal economic order of post-WWII was built on international organisations that facilitate co-operation, yet the Trump administration has privileged bilateral engagement over multilateral or institutional support, and has made a point of prioritising relationships with state-led authoritarian capitalist states over democratic open economy allies in Europe and East Asia. Fairness in economic relations is a concept built on shared institutions and values, not a unilateral enforcement. The NSS further isolates the US in its transactional view of diplomacy, shared prosperity and development.

The document supports gradual reforms and open economies, and explicitly supports reforms in Saudi Arabia and Egypt as large regional economies. It seems, however, that the cohesion of the GCC is more of a US security priority for defence co-operation, than for economic integration.