India-UAE-Israel trade deals set up a US-backed Western Quad ‘alternative to China’, as Abraham Accords bring new reality to the Middle East

Series of free-trade deals between India, the UAE and Israel will give an economic underpinning to the emerging US-backed alliance known as the West Asian Quad

While the group does not presently seek to confront Beijing, experts say the deals give it a US-corralled ‘alternative’ source of trade and investment to China

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Israeli President Isaac Herzog with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahya in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Photo: EPA

Published: 4:00pm, 26 Feb 2022Updated: 4:23pm, 26 Feb 2022

A free-trade agreement struck last week between India and the United Arab Emirates is the first of a series of deals which will soon bring together members of US-sponsored strategic alliances in the Middle East and Asia.

The UAE, a wealthy oil exporter and the Middle East’s top trade hub, is also close to wrapping up free-trade negotiations with Israel, Emirati officials said, underpinning a rapidly growing relationship established under the Abraham Accords in August 2020.

Marking the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Israel in January, India announced it had also entered into free-trade talks with Jerusalem.

Alongside the free-trade deal concluded by India and the UAE on February 17, it would establish the economic framework of the so-called Western Quad alliance established last year in partnership with the US.

“The signing of the historic Abraham Accords has not only opened up new opportunities for our own bilaterals, but also the quadrilateral strategic cooperation between the UAE, the United States, India and Israel,” Ahmed Albanna, the UAE ambassador to India, said at an event in New Delhi on February 10.

Describing the West Asian Quad as “an offspring of the Abraham Accords”, Albanna said that the multilateral approach embodied by the US-backed alliances was “more critical than ever to respond to increasingly complex threats to global economic growth and stability”.

The nomenclature of the Western Quad echoes that of the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in the Asia-Pacific, of which India is a member alongside Japan and Australia.