US foreign policy in the region is expected to shift as US President Donald Trump appoints Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, replacing Rex Tillerson who was sacked on 13 March.

Trump announced on Twitter on 13 March that Pompeo would replace Tillerson, and that Gina Haspel will be the new director of the CIA. In a later briefing from the lawn of the White House, Trump said that he had disagreed with Tillerson over Iran.

“We disagreed on things. When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s a terrible deal, I guess he thought it was OK. I wanted to either break it or do something different and he felt a little bit differently,” said Trump.

Middle East foreign policy is widely expected to shift because Pompeo is more likely to be aligned to Trump’s firmer stance on critical regional issues such as Iran and Qatar. Tillerson not only favoured a more conciliatory approach to dealing with Iran, he had also called on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to ease sanctions on Qatar.

In October last year, the Trump administration took a tougher stance on Iran, but stopped short of pulling the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme.

Trump has consistently criticised the JCPOA deal from before he entered the White House. His criticism comes despite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the other parties to the deal – China, France, Germany, Russia and the UK – saying that Iran has complied with the agreement.

On Qatar, Tillerson said in June last year that countries should ease their blockade to avert the humanitarian, commercial and military consequences of the embargo. A few days later Trump said Qatar had funded terrorism and has called on the Gulf state to end its support of extremist ideologies.