U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Massad Boulos, a Lebanese Maronite Christian businessman with no political experience, as his Senior Advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs.
The decision is likely to be controversial in Arab and Muslim communities because of Boulos’s pro-normalisation stance with Israel and support for the Abraham Accords.
On Sunday Trump announced that Boulos, who is Trump’s daughter’s father-in-law, would serve as a Senior Advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, highlighting his business acumen and his commitment to peace in the Middle East.
Boulos is likely to have been chosen because he is the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, and helped Trump secure some Arab American votes in the recent election, especially in Michigan.
His support for the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and some Arab states, aligns with Trump’s heavily criticised policies that many argue marginalised Palestinian rights.
In a July interview with LBCI, he praised Trump’s foreign policy, stating: “President Trump, during his four years in office, was the only president in modern U.S. history who did not start any wars; he ended wars and withdrew American troops, especially from the Middle East and other regions like Afghanistan.”
Editorial credit: Evan El-Amin
Speaking to the Times of Israel, he remarked: “People see that Biden and Harris failed to end the wars and failed to even return the American hostages from Gaza… Lebanese Americans are migrating to the Republican Party and to Trump because they feel that Trump is their only hope to end this war, and end all the wars… so we can start talking about rebuilding Lebanon and Gaza.”
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Boulos was born in 1971 in Kfaraakka, Lebanon, into a Greek Orthodox family. He moved to Texas as a teenager to study law at the University of Houston Law Center.
He is the father of Michael Boulos, who is married to Tiffany Trump.
Boulos is the CEO of SCOA Nigeria, a conglomerate involved in distributing motor vehicles and equipment across West Africa. His family’s business, Boulos Enterprises, deals with motorcycles, power bikes, tricycles, and outboard motors, among other products.
Boulos has been involved in Lebanese politics, initially as an ally of Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, but he has also supported other political figures in Lebanon, including Suleiman Frangieh.
Little is known about how his Maronite background may influence his views but Lebanese Maronite Christians have had a historical connection with Israel due to shared interests during certain periods of conflict, particularly during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990).
Maronite militias, like the Lebanese Forces and the South Lebanon Army (SLA), formed alliances with Israel against Palestinian and Muslim factions in Lebanon.
After the civil war, the political landscape changed. The Syrian occupation of Lebanon from 1990 until 2005 significantly altered dynamics, making any overt cooperation with Israel politically risky for Lebanese Christians.
Despite this, there have been instances of Maronite political figures expressing pragmatic or even positive views towards Israel, often framed around peace or economic cooperation.
Today, opinions among Maronite Christians in Lebanon about Israel vary widely. Some continue to view Israel with suspicion due to historical conflicts, and the ongoing Hezbollah-Israeli tensions. Others might see Israel as a counterweight to Hezbollah’s influence or as a potential partner in regional stability.
