The US alliance with Qatar
In this friendship, money talks and strategic interests walk.
By James Sinkinson
JNS
May 29, 2025
America’s embrace of Qatar has always been a strange fit, but recently, President Donald Trump has doubled down, transforming this unholy alliance into something approaching the profane.
Qatar has, over the years, provided the United States with a valuable package of benefits—from a huge Middle East military footprint to cooperation on terrorist negotiations and massive, mutually beneficial economic ties. However, it also runs one of the world’s most expansive pro-terrorist media outlets, hosts terrorist organizations while playing intermediary with Western nations and extravagantly funds anti-American influence campaigns on U.S. soil.
Enter Trump, who on his recent Mideast tour made lavish overtures to deepen this already treacherous relationship. The coup de grâce was the president’s acceptance of a $400 million luxury 747 aircraft that Qatar gifted him (and the United States?) for use as the new Air Force One.
Surprisingly, Trump has received little resistance back home for this round of high-stakes Qatari romancing. To unravel this tale of strange bedfellows, not surprisingly, one needs only follow the money.
Qatar has sought and gained influence with the United States for some decades, helping the United States fulfill its military needs in the region, pouring billions of dollars into the U.S. economy and donating billions to American academic institutions.
But the friendship is a contradiction, because Qatar openly opposes many core American values and vital interests. In fact, the tiny, wealthy Gulf state seeks to spread a similar Islamist ideology to that held by terrorist groups such as Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The emirate funds and provides refuge for these groups, uses Al Jazeera to spread their hateful propaganda, and even publicly promotes their Islamist agenda in the United States itself.
This would be a good time for American citizens and U.S. lawmakers, including Trump, to ask themselves: Is our booming financial friendship with Qatar worth compromising America’s strategic goals?
America’s rapprochement with Qatar delivers substantial tangible benefits. The emirate hosts the Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. This base supports operations across the region, including in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. It’s a strategic hub for CENTCOM and was built at Qatar’s expense, at a cost of billions.
Qatar also cooperates with the United States on counterterrorism measures, sharing intelligence and supporting the United States in combating ISIS and extremist financing. In addition, the emirate acts as a regional mediator, hosting negotiations with Islamist terrorist groups. Qatar’s most recent mediation efforts have been between the United States, Israel and Hamas to facilitate the release of hostages kidnapped by the terror group during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Furthermore, as one of the world’s top liquid natural-gas exporters, Qatar contributes to global energy stability, aligning with U.S. interests. But perhaps the biggest benefit of America’s friendship with Qatar is the economic partnership the two countries enjoy. Qatar invests heavily in the U.S. economy—more than $45 billion in recent years—supporting infrastructure, technology and real estate projects.
How Trump seeks to expand and deepen America’s alliance with Qatar. During his recent trip to the Persian Gulf, Trump signed agreements totaling at least $1.2 trillion with Qatar’s rulers. Trump praised America’s friendship with Qatar, saying, “I don’t think our friendship has ever been stronger than it is right now … nobody’s going to break” this relationship.
No wonder Trump is so bullish on Qatar: The Trump Organization has extensive high-stakes business dealings with state-owned and private Qatari interests, including the development of a luxury golf resort.
The U.S. alliance with Qatar is often contradictory. The emirate not only doesn’t share American or Western values; it shares and promotes the same Islamist ideology espoused by murderous terror groups. Qatar provides funding and refuge to these terrorists. For example, the Gulf state has hosted leaders of Hamas for years and given them some $1.8 billion. Qatar also contributed $30 million per month to Hamas from 2012 to 2023, according to a Qatari official interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The emirate mediates treacherously between the United States, its allies and the very terrorist groups that its rulers fund. For instance, according to Israel Hayom, Qatar has been sabotaging efforts to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, encouraging Hamas to reject a proposed compromise arrangement drafted by Egypt, allegedly because the terror group could negotiate an even better deal.
Plus, Qatar owns and runs Al Jazeera, which publishes Islamist and anti-Israel propaganda worldwide. In 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt had a diplomatic fallout with Qatar, they demanded a major shift in Al Jazeera’s pro-Islamist editorial line. These countries ultimately banned it. Even the Palestinian Authority banned the news outlet because of the network’s pro-Hamas stance.
How can a country that spews Islamist propaganda that contravenes American values and undermines America’s allies be one of America’s greatest allies in the region?
Qatar seeks to promote its Islamist agenda in the United States itself. Perhaps the best example is Qatar’s funding of U.S. academic institutions. Qatar is the largest foreign donor to U.S. higher education, giving American universities a staggering $6.25 billion since 2012. Strong evidence suggests this funding has contributed to skyrocketing antisemitism on U.S. campuses. A report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy in 2023 noted a link between hidden donations from foreign governments, especially Qatar, to American educational institutions and an increase in antisemitic incidents on campus, as well as the erosion of liberal norms of academic freedom.
Benefits from the United States-Qatari friendship are canceled out by the emirate’s adversarial behavior. For example, the United States might not need Qatar’s mediation services if Qatar didn’t fund hostile terrorist organizations in the first place. On the other hand, Qatar’s investments in the U.S. economy might be hard to replace without the alliance between the two countries. Indeed, the linchpin for this alliance has always been Qatar’s abundant natural gas and oil wealth.
Qatari wealth has created a devil’s bargain for the United States—one that comes at the steep expense of weakening America’s values and interests.
Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
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