Donald Trump once called the nation of Qatar a historical “funder of terrorism.” Now, he’s letting the same nation’s military inside the United States to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility.
The United States Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth announced on Friday, Oct. 10, that the Trump administration is signing a letter of acceptance for the Qatari Emiri Air Force to build a facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. He was joined by the Qatari Minister of Defense, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, at the Pentagon, and thanked him for playing a “substantial role” in helping achieve the recent Gaza peace deal.
Hegseth revealed that the facility will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance the two nations’ “combined training, increase lethality, and interoperability.” Though he called it “just another example” of the U.S.-Qatar partnership, Trump once sang songs against this very partnership. Though Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, the Al-Udeid Air Base, with thousands of American forces, this “deal” is not a simple show of “partnership.”
This military project dates back to June 2017, when the Pentagon first announced that Qatar would buy 72 F-15s from the United States in a deal worth $12 billion. (via Al Jazeera) This happened during the first term of Trump’s presidency, when, just days ago, he called Qatar “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” He announced,
“We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals, and military people, that the time had come to call out Qatar to end its funding of terrorism. They have to end that funding and its extremist ideology in terms of funding.”
Then, during Biden’s presidency in 2022, the Air Force Facility and training of Qatari pilots in the U.S. were in talks, and Mountain Home was narrowed down as the official site. (via Stripes) While Hegseth clarified in an X post that no sovereign Qatari base is being built and “we control the existing base, like we do with all partners,” people still cannot comprehend why the U.S. is training Qatari pilots, who are not even in NATO.
While the Pentagon justifies it, calling it a “partnership” and citing military cooperation, Trump’s sudden change of heart regarding Qatar isn’t simply about diplomacy. Just months ago, at the end of April, the Trump Organization signed a deal in Qatar to build a Trump International Golf Course and Trump Villas as part of the $5.5 billion Simaisma beachside project located roughly 40 minutes north of Doha. (via Newsweek)
So, the acceptance letter now seems more like a return gift from Trump to Qatar for approving his Trump-branded project. The President has grown a soft spot for the country following the golf course deal, and even announced that any attacks on Qatar will be treated as “a threat to the peace and security of the United States” just weeks ago, on Sept. 29. (via CBS News)
Is it foreign policy or a favor to those who benefit him personally? One X user rightly put it, “He’s Trump first.”
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