裂痕迅速加深：在12月一份沙特声明用5个段落、4次称阿联酋为“兄弟”之后，沙特在也门打击了一批阿联酋武器运输，随后在大约两个月内高层官员几乎停止直接接触，媒体攻击则持续升级。
尽管双边贸易每年达310亿美元，且迪拜—利雅得航线是全球第七繁忙的国际航线，这场冲突仍冲击了原有互赖结构：阿联酋是沙特第五大商品出口市场，沙特是阿联酋第九大出口市场。结构性失衡同样明显，沙特公民约2000万、阿联酋约100万（约20:1），而分歧从2018年也门战略分化、到2021年欧佩克配额僵局、再到2023年苏丹代理对抗和也门战场逆转，呈现连续升级趋势。
风险正从双边层面外溢到地区与商业层面：4名西方外交官听到企业投诉称其在沙特遭遇新行政阻碍，同时调停虽在2月4日、2月13日、2月16日等关键日期密集出现，仍未取得明显突破。市场普遍判断重演2017年式全面禁运概率较低，但冲突拖长并牵动非洲之角与叙利亚等战场的概率在上升。
The rupture intensified quickly: after a Saudi statement in December used five paragraphs and called the UAE “brotherly” four times, Saudi forces struck an Emirati weapons shipment in Yemen, and within roughly two months top officials had mostly stopped direct contact while media attacks escalated.
Even with bilateral trade at $31bn a year and the Dubai-Riyadh route ranked the world’s seventh-busiest international corridor, the dispute disrupted deep interdependence: the UAE is Saudi Arabia’s fifth-largest goods export market, while Saudi Arabia is the UAE’s ninth-largest. Structural asymmetry is also stark, with about 20m Saudi citizens versus 1m Emirati citizens (about 20:1), and disagreements show a rising sequence from Yemen divergence in 2018, to OPEC quota paralysis in 2021, to proxy confrontation in Sudan and battlefield reversal in Yemen in 2023.
Risk is now spilling from bilateral politics into regional security and business operations: diplomats from four Western countries reported complaints from UAE-based firms about new Saudi bureaucratic barriers, and mediation pushes around February 4, February 13, and February 16 still produced little visible progress. Most actors see a repeat of the 2017-style full embargo as unlikely, but the probability of a prolonged rivalry affecting the Horn of Africa and Syria is rising.
Source: Why the Gulf’s most powerful countries are at odds
Subtitle: A feud between Saudi Arabia and the UAE will have far-reaching consequences
Dateline: 2月 19, 2026 04:53 上午 | DUBAI AND RIYADH