WASHINGTON – Just months after soliciting and receiving a $400 million luxury airliner for himself from Qatar, President Donald Trump has now quietly granted the oil-rich autocracy a NATO-like defense guarantee, promising a U.S. response if it is attacked.
“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 Trump-signed order decrees.
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“In the event of such an attack, the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.”
The order was signed the same day Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which Netanyahu called the Qatari prime minister to apologize for the Sept. 9 attack on Doha to kill Hamas officials. A Qatari national was also killed in the strike. The security guarantee — possibly unique in its promised protection to a country that has been treated as a partner but not a treaty ally — was not mentioned that day and was not publicized at all by the White House; instead, it came to light on Wednesday in press reports.
“I’m not aware of anything coming close to this in other contexts,” said Ned Price, a former spokesman for the National Security Council under former President Barack Obama and a CIA analyst before that.
“It’s especially striking when considering that this administration supported the Gulf Cooperation Council’s blockade of Qatar in 2017. That was before they offered Trump the plane and the [Trump aide Steve] Witkoff family tens of millions over the years,” Price added. “Qatar is an important partner, to be sure, but it’s hard to conclude their largesse towards Trump and his business partners didn’t help to purchase this for them.”
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Trump’s White House did not respond to HuffPost queries. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked a related question at Wednesday’s press briefing about the involvement of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in negotiations with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, three countries that combined are doing $2.5 billion in private business with him.
Leavitt responded by calling the question itself out of bounds.
“I think it’s, frankly, despicable,” she said before praising Kushner lavishly as a selfless and highly respected leader.
Trump, nevertheless, has been the most openly corrupt president in at least the past century, and possibly for the entire history of the republic, using the presidency to enrich himself in ways never before seen.
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He has used his office to promote his private money-making schemes, from crypto “meme” coins to his family’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency brokerage to his golf courses. In July, he spent some $10 million in taxpayer money to attend a marketing event for one of his resorts in Scotland.
Norm Eisen, the top ethics lawyer in Obama’s White House, said the deal to protect Qatar raises obvious questions.
“Every American should be profoundly troubled by this decision, made under a shroud of secrecy, that we will afford NATO-like protection to Qatar, putting the United States at risk of counterattack and the people of our armed services potentially in harm’s way,” he said.
Many executive orders Trump has signed have involved dragging reporters into the Oval Office to listen as the staff secretary reads a summary of the document before Trump signs it. Most of Trump’s orders are sent out to the White House press corps via email.
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This order saw neither of those. Instead, it was quietly posted on the White House website between the time it was signed on Monday and Wednesday morning.
“Who did they think they were going to fool?” wondered Eisen. “That grave decision should not be made under a cloud of suspicion about whether it was corruptly produced or not.”
Trump has at his disposal a perfectly capable, modified Boeing 747 for his use as Air Force One, but he has been complaining about it since returning to office in January. He detailed his objection — that other leaders had newer, larger planes — earlier this year.
“When you land and you see Saudi Arabia and you see UAE and you see Qatar and you see all these, and they have these brand-new Boeing 747s mostly, and you see ours next to it,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity en route to the Arabian Peninsula in May. “It’s much smaller, it’s much less impressive.”
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Trump likely would have had two new, larger 747s for his use today had he not meddled in the Air Force One replacement contract during the first year of his first term as president. Despite lacking expertise in aviation, Trump insisted that Boeing was cheating the United States under an agreement with the Air Force signed during the Obama administration.
Trump forced Boeing to slash the contract amount, which in turn led to its decision to find already-built planes and modify them, rather than to build them from the outset to Air Force specifications. And that in turn has caused years of delays and massive losses for Boeing.
In February, Trump’s administration asked Qatar’s royal family if he could have a 13-year-old 747 it had unsuccessfully tried to sell for years. He had it flown to Palm Beach, Florida, during one of his golf trips there, so he could tour it. He reportedly was impressed by all the high-end accoutrements aboard.
Weeks later, the Air Force announced it was accepting the plane as a gift to the United States — even though Trump said it would be given to his presidential library after his departure from the White House — and that it would be modified for use as a temporary Air Force One. The Pentagon refused to release any further information about it, including the cost expected to modify it.
Experts in the field, however, estimate that the necessary security modifications to fly the president could cost as much as $1 billion.
