Explained | What to know about the growing Saudi Arabia-UAE rift?

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced last week that it would withdraw from OPEC, the move reverberated beyond global oil markets. It was the latest sign that the UAE’s once close partnership with another Persian Gulf powerhouse, Saudi Arabia, had fractured into open rivalry.

Saudi Arabia has historically been the dominant voice within OPEC - the cartel of leading oil producers - and has leveraged its vast production capacity to sway global prices. So the UAE decision to leave the organisation, starting in May, signaled a deeper rejection of a system long seen as dictated by the Saudi leadership.

The divergence between Saudi and UAE leaders did not happen overnight.

A decade ago, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the UAE leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, were viewed as ideologically aligned allies. Both were ambitious, assertive and in lockstep in their efforts to reshape the region after the Arab Spring uprisings that they saw as a threat to their governing systems.

Together, they waged war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. They also moved jointly to isolate a Persian Gulf neighbor, Qatar, over accusations of supporting terrorism, which Qatar denied. And they coordinated closely against their common regional adversary, Iran.

Today, the relationship looks vastly different. The two nations increasingly back opposing sides in regional wars, pursue conflicting energy strategies and compete for global investment.

A clash over oil and economics

For decades, the UAE city of Dubai was the Middle East’s premier hub for finance, logistics and multinational corporations. But over the past 10 years, Crown Prince Mohammed’s sweeping plans to turn Saudi Arabia into a business and tourism powerhouse have increasingly placed the country in direct competition with the UAE.

Saudi officials made that ambition explicit when they required international companies seeking lucrative government contracts to establish regional headquarters in the capital, Riyadh. Saudi officials said in March last year that more than 600 companies had established regional bases in Riyadh.

To UAE officials, the message was unmistakable: Saudi Arabia was no longer content to rely on oil wealth and political influence, and was moving directly into their economic territory.

Both nations have also been pouring billions of dollars into emerging sectors like artificial intelligence, renewable energy and global infrastructure — often targeting the same investors and markets.

Though Saudi Arabia has long dominated OPEC, the UAE has built up its own capabilities, expanding oil production potential. And it has sought greater flexibility to increase output.

UAE officials have openly expressed frustration that OPEC has prevented them from fully capitalizing on their production capacities.

From alliance to confrontation in Yemen

The split has been clear in Yemen, an impoverished, war-ravaged country at the southern tip of the Persian Gulf. When Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a bombing campaign in 2015, they presented a united front to combat the Iran-backed Houthis and restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

Over time, that objective splintered.

Sharing a long, porous border, Saudi Arabia saw a unified Yemen as essential to preventing hostile forces from threatening its southern flank.

The UAE, lacking any border with Yemen, cultivated allies, notably supporting the Southern Transitional Council — an armed group seeking a breakaway state in the south. That alliance granted the UAE sway over strategic ports and shipping routes in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

By late 2025, those diverging interests had escalated into direct confrontation when UAE-backed forces seized territory in southern and eastern Yemen, encompassing resource-rich areas critical to Saudi interests.

The crisis reached a climax in December, when Saudi-led forces bombed what they said was a UAE weapons shipment bound for Yemeni separatists.

Competing visions in Sudan

The rivalry has also played out in East Africa, where a civil war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

After President Omar al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE sought to shape Sudan’s political transition. As the country descended into conflict, their approaches diverged.

Saudi Arabia backs the Sudanese military, framing the support as an effort to preserve state institutions and prevent further chaos. Saudi officials view stability in Sudan as crucial to the security of Egypt — an important Saudi ally — and to the balance of power along the Red Sea.

The UAE has been accused of supporting the Rapid Support Forces, a rival, paramilitary group. UAE officials deny those allegations, despite evidence to the contrary.

Friction, but no sign of severing ties

The rift has even drawn in the White House. In November, President Donald Trump told Sheikh Mohammed of the UAE that Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia had urged him to impose sanctions on the UAE over its alleged support for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, according to four people briefed on the call.

Within weeks, the spat between the two countries became bitterly public, shattering decades of official cordiality.

Still, neither Gulf country has signaled a willingness to sever ties, and officials on both sides describe the relationship as strategically important. Historically, in times of crisis, the countries have banded together.

After the UAE came under renewed Iranian attack Monday, Crown Prince Mohammed called Sheikh Mohammed to condemn the strikes and to express support for the UAE as it defends its security, the official Saudi news agency reported.

But the UAE’s OPEC departure indicated that even the war with Iran cannot erase fundamental tensions between the two leaders. The strained relationship between the Gulf powerhouses is likely to influence the region’s trajectory for years to come.