In June 2017, during his first presidential term, Donald Trump had accused Qatar of sponsoring Islamist terrorism at the highest level and expressed the willingness to intervene in order to put an end to it. The statements can be found on the White House’s archived website for the first Trump administration, for instance:
“The nation of Qatar has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level…They have to end that funding, and its extremist ideology in terms of funding.”
At the time, Trump also tweeted his support for the diplomatic and economic blockade imposed on Qatar by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain: “During my recent trip to the Middle East, I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!”.
However, it is also essential to recall how Trump had suddenly changed his tone towards Doha shortly after, by offering to help the involved Gulf nations resolve their issues by inviting them to a White House meeting if necessary. Trump had also emphasized the importance of all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations, the promotion of extremist ideology, highlighting the importance of the US partnership with Qatar, as the nation is home to the Al-Udeid Air Base, the biggest US military facility in the Middle East, as reported at the time by CNN.
On his second term, though, Trump’s position towards Qatar seems to have radically changed, since on May 14th, the US President stated that the US “never had a relationship with Qatar as strong as it is now” and that Washington “is going to protect you”.
During his current visit to Doha, Trump announced a colossal $1.2 trillion economic commitment with Qatar that includes a $96 billion deal with Qatar Airways and over $38 billion in investments at the Al-Udeid Air Base.
Moreover, Qatar generated strong controversy by offering a $400 million luxury aircraft to serve as a new Air Force One and then go to Trump’s personal use, raising major constitutional, ethical, and even security concerns; especially, since Qatar has constantly been accused of ideologically infiltrating US universities through very generous donations, as the pro-Hamas demonstrations throughout campuses have shown. Since the early 1980s, Qatar has poured over $6.5 billion into US universities, earning the record of being the biggest Arab donor in the US education system. Indeed, the ideology backing the Palestinian terrorist organization became a tool in the hands of Doha to destabilize campuses.
While Trump is showing his great appreciation for the aircraft donated by Qatar, shortly before, in late April 2025, he issued an executive order requiring American colleges and universities to report all foreign funding, after concerns forwarded by Jewish groups that countries such as Qatar and Iran were promoting anti-Israel discourse on campus. An interesting double standard.
In addition, let’s not forget the Qatargate issue in Europe, which is far from being over. Qatar is notoriously behind the expansion of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology in the Old Continent, with a hegemonic mechanism over the Muslim diaspora through the control of Islamic centers and mosques, to influence European policies towards Muslims and foreign policy. All of this is extensively documented in the book “Qatar Papers” by French investigative journalists Chirstian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, where they exposed in detail flows of money.
Qatar is also Hamas’ main financial and political backer in the Middle East. Since 2007, Qatar has pumped about $1.8 billion into the Strip, and in 2021, Doha pledged $360 million in annual support to Gaza, as reported by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Much of that money ended up in Hamas’s pockets.
By supporting Hamas, Qatar has sought to consolidate its hegemony in the Arab world and even in the West, where the Palestinian terrorist organization is often presented as a “resistance movement”. Furthermore, through the Doha-based television channel al-Jazeera, Qatar heavily contributed to spreading the pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood propaganda.
The story is not over, because Qatar has also supported the activity of other terrorist groups that destabilize the region and threaten Israeli security. For instance, in July 2020, a private contractor working for the German security services, Jason G., revealed to the German weekly Die Zeit that Doha was financing Hezbollah. As reported by the German newspaper, while in Doha, the contractor came across an alleged arms deal involving military equipment from Eastern Europe, handled through a company in Qatar, as well as financial flows from several wealthy Qataris and Lebanese exiles in Doha to Hezbollah. The donations were said to have been processed through a charity organization in Doha with the knowledge of influential government officials. According to Die Zeit, Qatar even offered the contractor €750,000 to keep quiet about Hezbollah’s funding through an offer made via Qatar’s ambassador to Belgium Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Sulaiman al-Khulaifi.
In February 2018, in a report for the British government into the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors, intelligence specialist Steven Merley highlighted Doha’s role in financially supporting jihadist groups in Syria as well as paying or helping to facilitate ransom payments to terrorist groups such as former Jabhat al-Nusra, concluding the report with a clear recommendation: “The UK should put maximum pressure on the Qatari government to cease all support for Islamist terrorism”.
It is no secret that Qatar is one of the main supporters of Islamism and Islamist terrorism in the Middle East and the world, just like the Iranian regime. It is also well known that Qatar is the main supporter of Hamas and, for this reason, it should never have been involved in the role of mediation, given that Doha has in fact operated as the diplomatic arm of Hamas. It is in Doha in fact that the political leadership of Hamas continues to reside and be protected.
Trump’s unexpected pro-Qatar policy will only further encourage Doha’s commitment to expand its Islamist hegemony in the West. This is incoherent because the Trump-Qatar renewed relations is a given alert against the implications and call upon them to trust but verify.