U.S.-Arab economic relations and the Obama administration

Nader Habibi and Eckart Woertz assess developments affecting U.S.-Middle East economic relations in the Crown Center's latest Middle East Brief

Professor Nader Habibi

WALTHAM, Mass.—In the Crown Center's latest Middle East Brief, Professor Nader Habibi and Dr. Eckart Woertz examine four developments that affect U.S.-Middle East economic relations and present important policy challenges to the Obama administration:

• China and India's increasing energy interests in the Persian Gulf;
• U.S. interest in reducing instability through economic development and poverty reduction in the Middle East;
• U.S. loss of market share to European and Asian countries as the Middle East's purchasing power grows; and
• The Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) emergence as the financial and economic center of the Middle East.

Professor Nader Habibi is the Henry J. Leir Professor of the Economics of the Middle East at Brandeis University.

Dr. Eckart Woertz is the director of the Economic Research Program at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, which co-sponsored the publication of the brief.

Download Habibi and Woertz's brief. (PDF)

The full Middle East Brief Series is available on the Crown Center's Web site.