WASHINGTON – Simply months after soliciting and receiving a $400 million luxurious airliner for himself from Qatar, President Donald Trump has now quietly granted the oil-rich autocracy a NATO-like protection assure, promising a U.S. response whether 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.
“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.”
Illustration: Kelly Caminero/HuffPost; Picture:Getty Pictures
The order was signed the identical day Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, throughout which Netanyahu referred to as the Qatari prime minister to apologize for the Sept. 9 assault on Doha to kill Hamas officers. A Qatari nationwide was additionally killed within the strike. The safety assure — probably distinctive in its promised safety to a rustic that has been handled as a companion however not a treaty ally — was not talked about that day and was not publicized in any respect by the White Home; as an alternative, it got here to gentle on Wednesday in press reviews.
“I’m not aware of anything coming close to this in other contexts,” stated Ned Value, a former spokesman for the Nationwide Safety Council underneath former President Barack Obama and a CIA analyst earlier than 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,” Value 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.”
Trump’s White Home didn’t reply to HuffPost queries. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was requested a associated query at Wednesday’s press briefing concerning the involvement of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in negotiations with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, three international locations that mixed are doing $2.5 billion in non-public enterprise with him.
Leavitt responded by calling the query itself out of bounds.
“I think it’s, frankly, despicable,” she stated earlier than praising Kushner lavishly as a selfless and extremely revered chief.
Trump, nonetheless, has been the most overtly corrupt president in at the least the previous century, and probably for your entire historical past of the republic, utilizing the presidency to complement himself in methods by no means earlier than seen.
He has used his workplace to advertise his non-public money-making schemes, from crypto “meme” cash to his household’s World Liberty Monetary cryptocurrency brokerage to his golf programs. In July, he spent some $10 million in taxpayer cash to attend a advertising and marketing occasion for one in all his resorts in Scotland.
Norm Eisen, the highest ethics lawyer in Obama’s White Home, stated the deal to guard Qatar raises apparent 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 stated.
Many govt orders Trump has signed have concerned dragging reporters into the Oval Workplace to pay attention because the workers secretary reads a abstract of the doc earlier than Trump indicators it. Most of Trump’s orders are despatched out to the White Home press corps by way of e-mail.
This order noticed neither of these. As a substitute, it was quietly posted on the White Home web site between the time it was signed on Monday and Wednesday morning.
“Who did they think they were going to fool?” puzzled 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 wonderfully succesful, modified Boeing 747 for his use as Air Power One, however he has been complaining about it since returning to workplace in January. He detailed his objection — that different leaders had newer, bigger planes — earlier this yr.
“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 instructed Fox Information host Sean Hannity en path to the Arabian Peninsula in Might. “It’s much smaller, it’s much less impressive.”
Trump possible would have had two new, bigger 747s for his use as we speak had he not meddled within the Air Power One alternative contract through the first yr of his first time period as president. Regardless of missing experience in aviation, Trump insisted that Boeing was dishonest the USA underneath an settlement with the Air Power signed through the Obama administration.
Trump pressured Boeing to slash the contract quantity, which in flip led to its resolution to search out already-built planes and modify them, fairly than to construct them from the outset to Air Power specs. And that in flip has prompted years of delays and large losses for Boeing.
In February, Trump’s administration requested Qatar’s royal household if he might have a 13-year-old 747 it had unsuccessfully tried to promote for years. He had it flown to Palm Seashore, Florida, throughout one in all his golf journeys there, so he might tour it. He reportedly was impressed by all of the high-end accoutrements aboard.
Weeks later, the Air Power introduced it was accepting the aircraft as a present to the USA — despite the fact that Trump stated it could be given to his presidential library after his departure from the White Home — and that it could be modified to be used as a brief Air Power One. The Pentagon refused to launch any additional details about it, together with the price anticipated to change it.
Specialists within the area, nevertheless, estimate that the required safety modifications to fly the president might price as a lot as $1 billion.
