Until November, Faye Nemer never voted for a Republican for president.
"I think it was surprising for me to vote for a candidate other than a Democrat," she recalled.
Nemer is founder and CEO of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Mich., which represents around 3,500 business leaders from Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds. She says many felt abandoned by the Biden-Harris administration's support for Israel in the war with Hamas in Gaza, and decided to vote for Trump instead, hoping that he could bring peace to the region.
Arab and Muslim voters helped deliver the key swing state of Michigan to President Trump last year. But now, some are expressing concern about his rhetoric regarding the Middle East.
Nemer supports a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and she believes Trump could make his mark by pushing the United States to recognize a Palestinian state.
"That's the only pathway to the long, lasting peace that President Trump wants to accomplish," she said. "And that could be a defining moment for his presidency to finally achieve peace in the Middle East."
The U.S. and some key European allies have taken the position that a Palestinian state should be the product of a negotiated solution that includes Israel.
Ibrahim Duhaini, a medical physicist from Dearborn, also voted Republican for the first time last year hoping that Trump would bring peace to the region, and beyond.
"So if you could do that, you could be the chosen person from God, I would say," Duhaini said. "But we hope that [he] could accomplish this, at least in the Middle East, and…other parts of the world, especially Ukraine and Russia."
Trump also made significant gains in nearby Hamtramck, which has an all-Muslim city council and mayor, Amer Ghalib. Ghalib, who endorsed Trump, thinks many Arabs and Muslims have increasingly felt alienated from the Democratic Party — on both foreign policy and domestic cultural issues.
"We used to utilize our force, our votes, our resources, to support the Democratic Party," Ghalib said. "And despite all of that, the attack came from them."
That attack, he explained, happened in 2023, when Hamtramck's city council voted unanimously during June, Pride month, to ban most flags — including Pride flags — on public property.
The vote prompted criticism from some Michigan Democrats.
Ghalib said that served to distance some local Muslims from the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Republicans reached out, with Trump campaigning in Hamtramck and Dearborn before the election.
"Our community is conservative. They care about raising their kids the way they want, not letting others implement some values that conflict with our values," Ghalib explained. "We hear good stuff from his side about this - protecting the next generation and the family values."
Since taking office, though, several of Trump's statements about the Middle East have raised concerns among Arab and Muslim Americans; like his repeated suggestion that the U.S. should take over Gaza and oversee its redevelopment as a seaside resort. That idea has been roundly rejected by Arab leaders.
And, according to the latest NPR poll, more than two-thirds of Americans oppose it.
Last week, Trump posted an apparently AI-generated video of a so-called "Trump Gaza" development, which featured an image of Trump sunbathing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Reached by phone after seeing the video, Ibrahim Duhaini said it made him regret supporting Trump, and he would not have done so if he'd known Trump would post such a message.
"He didn't say anything like that before," Duhaini said. "When he came to Dearborn, to the community, he said that he would strive for peace and justice for the whole region."
Faye Nemer, with the MENA American Chamber, calls the video "unbecoming" to the president and "destabilizing" to peace talks in the region. She said it's also counterproductive to Michigan Republicans' efforts to build on Trump's success in the last election.
"Midterm elections are coming up. There's various windows of opportunity in swing states that will have contentious elections," she said. "And the Republicans were hoping through outreach efforts to be able to continue to garner support of the Arab American voting bloc as well as the Muslim American voting bloc."
"Those prospects are most certainly being harmed by this rhetoric," she added.
Nemer called on Trump to take down the video in a statement to NPR and urged him to issue a statement aimed at reconciling with the Arab and Muslim American community.
But so far, the White House has doubled down. In a statement, a spokeswoman called Trump a "visionary" and said his plan would "resettle" Palestinians, without specifying where they'd be relocated.
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