ABSTRACT
When the six monarchies nestled on the Arabian Peninsula – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – joined together in early 1981 to create the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf, better known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), few observers believed that the promise for close trade relationships would bind conservative rulers and their societies together. At the time, and ever since, the priority was security to ensure regional peace and, as far as that objective was concerned, inevitable compromises were found even if the founding fathers camouflaged their goals behind economic integration. Ironically, and although a painful political divorce within the GCC family was seldom contemplated, the crisis that enveloped Qatar in 2017 threatened to unravel much of the progress made during the past few decades, while a new generation of Khalijis (Arab Gulf citizens) grew into full interdependence. To be sure, and beyond critical security ties, effective economic relationships have fostered greater intimacy as GCC officials developed and adopted mutually beneficial policies. Moreover, and while the economic benefits of the GCC’s 1981 Unified Economic Agreement remained far less impressive than the architects of the deal promised – since all six member states conducted most of their trade with foreign powers instead of with each other – non-negligible geostrategic benefits of integration occurred even if few anticipated the latest crisis with Doha. Remarkably, the GCC states opted to deal with bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) at various levels, which aimed to lessen tensions, although the opposite occurred after two members favoured individual bilateral treaties with the USA that, inevitably, sparked a major row between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain when Manama signed with Washington, and between Saudi Arabia and Oman when Muscat approved its own FTA with the USA.
