This paper will examine the changing position of the six Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) in South-South relations in the four decades following full independence. It combines historical analysis with the study of emergent geopolitical and trans-regional trends that shaped the differing phases of enmeshment in South-South frameworks. The paper begins by describing the ostensible paradox between the Gulf States’ integration into Western political and security spheres of influence in the 1960s and 1970s and the beginnings of the trans-national interconnections binding them to other developing nations in this period. This initially occurred through the provision of overseas development assistance and the patronage of international Islamic organisations and inter-regional economic and social development banks. These initiatives transmitted the Gulf States’ ‘soft power’ and new-found financial leverage onto the international stage, and the paper analyses the motivations and objectives behind their rise. These growing trans-regional linkages later became intermeshed with highly-accelerated globalizing processes in the 1980s and 1990s. Contemporaneously, the end of the Cold War facilitated the normalization of relations with China and post-communist states that transitioned to market economies. In the 2000s, the Gulf States emerged as significant regional and global actors. Their rise both deepened their role in South-South frameworks and occurred in tandem with shifting dynamics that rebalanced power relations across the world. Recent cooperative patterns, both material and discursive, provide a clear indication of the lenses through which GCC policymakers and their ruling elites view the Global South. These recent patterns, which still complement existing political and security relationships with the United States and European countries, are typical of the multi-layered approach that the Gulf States construct, as they balance domestic considerations against regional and international issues. The paper mixes the diachronic with the thematic as it addresses the practical consequences of the Gulf States’ interaction in South-South frameworks. These consequences include changed patterns in trade and investment flows, modification of provisions for developmental assistance to, and diplomatic mediation in, conflict-affected environments. These changes also anticipate further modifications in international relations and global governance that increasingly refract power through multiple nodes of influence. Collectively, these changes reveal a quantitative and qualitative strengthening of networks that bind the Gulf States to the Global South, and that operate bilaterally at the national and multilateral-institutional levels. These shifting patterns hold important implications for unprecedented transitions in the current global order.