For a guy who supposedly wants to extricate the United States from the Middle East, Donald Trump is certainly doing a terrific job of contradicting himself.
This week, the president signed an executive order that essentially provides Qatar, the small but influential Persian Gulf state that has been mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas, with a U.S. defence guarantee. “The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the order reads. The United States reserves the right to respond to any attack against Qatar with military means if it so chooses.
For anyone who remembers Trump’s first term, this might come as a surprise. Although his relationship with the Qataris ended in a good place by the time he left the White House in January 2021, it wasn’t always that way. When Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain imposed a land, sea and air blockade on Qatar in 2017, Trump backed them up. He even went so far as to take credit for the blockade decision. “The nation of Qatar has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level,” Trump said. “I decided … the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding, they have to end that funding and its extremist ideology.”
Trump has now done a complete 180-degree turn. In May, he flew to Doha, met with Qatari leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and returned to Washington with a commitment to an “economic exchange” between the two countries apparently worth an astounding $1.2 trillion. For Qatari leaders, whether or not those deals are actually consummated is beside the point; from their standpoint, the important thing is not the details, but how highly Trump values their relationship. This week’s U.S. security agreement is just icing on top of the cake.
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