Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan

The Emirate of Abu Dhabi , the third president and largest member of the United Arab Emirates Amir (king) of the Al Nahyan Dynasty .

Through a successful model of diversifying the oil-free economy, the country has made economic achievements such as lowering the share of oil in GDP to below 30% and taking the role of a hub in the Middle East through alliances with American big tech companies. In addition, it manages the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, including Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and is making astronomical capital gains by aggressively investing in new industries, startups, and real estate around the world. He is evaluated as managing the country as efficiently as one giant global hedge fund. Religiously, he abhors Islamic extremism and aims for a thoroughly secular state, and diplomatically, he pursues extreme pragmatism through tightrope diplomacy between the United States , Russia , and China .

However, he is a thorough despot and authoritarian strongman , and it is an undeniable fact that the democracy index in the United Arab Emirates has been in a serious downward trend since he took power. Another major criticism is that it is destabilizing the situation in neighboring countries by supporting separatist rebels in Libya , Sudan , and Yemen .

Trucial State, March 11, 1961 He was born at Oasis Hospital in Al Ain as the third son of King Zayd II . He spent his school years in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, until he was 18, and also received training at Gordonstoun School in Scotland during summer vacations . Afterwards, he went to study abroad at the British Military Academy and graduated in April 1979. While attending the military academy, he completed basic armor and flight training and descent training, and also completed training in tactical aircraft and helicopter piloting, including the Gazelle helicopter formation.[2]

When Muhammad was young, his father assigned Izzedine Ibrahim, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as his son's private tutor. This teacher tried to reform Mohammed's ideology, but it had the opposite effect. Until the 70s and early 80s, the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood was shared to some extent, but it appears that a great deal of antipathy arose after seeing Islamists overthrow secular monarchies in places such as Iran . For this reason, it is still famous for hating Islamic extremists.

In the 1980s, he went on vacation to Tanzania and met the Maasai people . When he returned from his trip and asked what his father, King Zayd II, had done to help the poor Maasai people, Muhammad shrugged his shoulders and answered that he did not help them because they were not Muslims . There is an anecdote that Zayd II then grabbed his arm and reprimanded him, saying, “We are all creations of Allah .”

Taking advantage of his experience as a graduate of the British Military Academy, he held various positions within the UAE military, starting as an officer in the Presidential Guard and ending as a pilot in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Air Force. In November 2003, he was appointed Deputy Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. When his father passed away in November of the following year and his half-brother and crown prince Khalifa ascended to the throne , he ascended to the position of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and in January 2005, he was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. At the end of the same month, he was promoted to general, and from December 2004, he served as chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Committee, which oversees development and planning in Abu Dhabi, and also served as a member of the Supreme Petroleum Committee.

Afterwards, as President Khalifa's health deteriorated due to a stroke , Muhammad became the de facto ruler of Abu Dhabi, receiving diplomatic envoys on his behalf starting in January 2014. And when his older brother Khalifa passed away on May 13, 2022, he officially became the King of Abu Dhabi, and the very next day, on May 14, he was elected as the third President of the United Arab Emirates.

It is known for supporting separatist movements and promoting division in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa . This stems from the tremendous shock received during the Arab Spring of 2011 , when secular dictatorships fell like dominoes and even the United States put pressure on Hosni Mubarak to step down, and the cause is anxiety that the United Arab Emirates could be next. Because there is a widespread sense of crisis that similar voices may arise in the United Arab Emirates if stable democratic states are established in neighboring countries, the government has actively supported separatist armed political factions such as Libya 's Khalifa Haftar , Yemen 's Southern Transitional Council (STC), and Sudan 's Hemeti to prevent a stable unification regime from being established in neighboring countries .

Although he considered the United States to be his most important ally and maintained close ties with high-ranking U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clark , his relationship with the Barack Obama administration was very poor. It began to turn out that Obama had signed the Iran nuclear deal with his archenemy, Iran , without prior consultation with the UAE . This was fueled by the fact that the United States supported the Free Syrian Army, an Islamist rebel group, to oust the regime of Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war . From the perspective of the UAE, which is extremely wary of Islamism, Islamists within the Free Syrian Army were an abomination.[3] Moreover, in 2016 , the relationship between Muhammad and Obama deteriorated extremely as Obama openly criticized the Gulf monarchies, calling them "those who are trying to free ride on the United States without being able to put out the fire on their own."[4]

However, his relationship with President Donald Trump is very good. This is because Trump's business-like diplomatic style and Muhammad's pragmatic diplomacy fit well together. When Trump put strong pressure on Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad, who hated Islamism, agreed, saying it was right.[5] Instead of establishing diplomatic relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords signed in August 2020, the country imported F-35 fighter jets.

The relationship with the Joe Biden administration was not good in the beginning. Biden has been uncomfortable with the Gulf monarchy's human rights issues since he was a presidential candidate, and when Biden requested the UAE to increase production due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country openly ignored it and then struck back by reducing production along with Russia . As Biden showed moves to withdraw from the Middle East, he also showed independent moves, such as building Chinese military facilities in Abu Dhabi without the United States' knowledge or purchasing Chinese L-15 fighter jets. Ultimately, the Biden administration designated the UAE as a major defense partner to prevent the expansion of Russian and Chinese influence and authorized Microsoft to invest $1.5 billion in G42, the UAE's state-run AI company.[6] I took advantage of the practical benefits.

Relations with Russia are very good. President Vladimir Putin openly called him an “old friend” and “a great friend of our country and a true friend of Russia,” while Muhammad was also named in the suspicion of Russian election interference during the 2016 U.S. presidential election . Thanks to Russia's full technical support, the UAE was able to train its first astronauts, Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi. On January 26, 2026, he personally visited Moscow and held the 15th summit meeting amidst warm hospitality . As Russia's largest trading partner in the Arab world, it serves as a liberation zone where Russian capital can bypass Western sanctions.[7]

In academia, Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan is defined as a typical strongman of a dictatorship . This is because there are no free and fair elections in the United Arab Emirates, political and civil rights are restricted, and freedom of expression and independent media are also suppressed. The reality is that the UAE authorities are carrying out torture, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances against their citizens and foreigners residing in the country.

Autocratic authoritarianism has clearly worsened since Muhammad ruled the United Arab Emirates. This is especially true since Muhammad himself believed that strong authoritarianism was the most optimal governing system for the United Arab Emirates. He hates Islamic extremism and likes the capitalist economic system, but he is a typical Arab secular dictator who must hold all power in the hands of one despot. The obsession with revolution became more severe during the Arab Spring , ultimately leading to a further curtailment of freedom of expression, thought, and assembly within the country.

All of the profits from natural resources obtained from selling huge amounts of oil are distributed to the people through Muhammad's hands. Unlike other countries where paying taxes means demanding rights, the UAE generates enormous profits through the monarchy's monopoly on oil, so there is no need to separately collect taxes from the people and there is a lack of justification for the people to demand suffrage and rights. Since all kinds of welfare benefits are generously distributed, such as free medical care, free education, housing subsidies, marriage subsidies, 0% taxes, and water and electricity bill reductions, there is no particular reason for citizens to protest. Since Muhammad concurrently serves as the head of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Mubadala (a state-run investment company), the Supreme Council for Finance and Economic Affairs, and the National National Oil Corporation (ADNOC), it is difficult for ordinary domestic companies and citizens to survive if he is out of his sight.

I visited Korea for 2 days and 1 night from May 28th to 29th, 2024. This is the first visit to Korea by a sitting United Arab Emirates president. On the 28th, we had a meeting with the heads of major Korean business groups. In addition to these people , NC Soft CEO Kim Taek-jin , Hive Chairman Bang Si -hyuk, and Musinsa CEO Cho Man- ho also attended and attracted attention. #

On May 29th, Yoon Seok-yeol A summit meeting was held with the President in the Presidential Office. At this event, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was signed. # On the afternoon of the same day, Lee Myung-bak He personally visited the former president 's Nonhyeon-dong home and had a meeting with former President Lee Myung-bak, and an unusual case occurred where a sitting head of state on a state visit personally visited the home of a retired head of state and had a meeting with him. # At this time, Lee Myung-bak personally delivered bouquets of flowers to his grandchildren and also hung a plaque welcoming Al-Nahyan in front of his house.

Jaemyung Lee July 1, 2025 The President held his first phone call with United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan since taking office, the President's Office announced. President Lee Jae-myung expressed his gratitude to President Mohammed for his congratulations on his inauguration, and said he looked forward to working together to further strengthen the 'special strategic partnership' between Korea and the UAE with the launch of our new government. The President's Office said, "The two leaders agreed on the need to expand the relationship between the two countries, which is developing in all directions based on mutual trust, into more strategic and future-oriented fields, and agreed to strengthen cooperation in areas such as AI, advanced technology, national defense, defense industry, and nuclear power plants." #