Gift or grift? The tiny Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar has just given the United States a 747 jet to serve as the new Air Force One. But what exactly is Qatar getting in return?
Qatar is an insanely wealthy country. Its citizenry is estimated to be 330,000 (with another 1.7 million foreigners serving as hired help on the peninsula). And yet the country controls more than 10 per cent of the world’s energy. In other words, money is no object for Doha. Influence is the name of the game.
US President Donald Trump says he would be crazy not to accept a gift worth $400 million (£300 million). But the man who wrote The Art of the Deal may not be aware of a truism in Washington: If you get something for free, you’re probably the product.
To be fair, Trump isn’t the first American to be enticed by the Qataris. We don’t know the exact amount of Qatari cash sloshing around in America, but then the Qataris reportedly just inked deals worth $1.2 trillion during Trump’s recent swing through the region. We know the jet that the Qataris donated to Trump is worth close to half a billion dollars alone. And The Free Press estimates that Qatar has invested nearly $100 billion in various aspects of the American economy. These investments (which I think are far more than $100 billion) range from education, lobby firms, public-relations firms, retainers for white-shoe law firms, real estate, tech, hedge funds and more. The truth is, nobody seems to know exactly how much money the Qataris have invested in America.
At first blush, one might wonder, what’s the problem? After all, American debt is spiralling out of control and Qatari investments could help dig the US out of a serious hole.
Here’s the problem: Qatari money isn’t just dirty – it’s filthy.
Qatar has been linked to multiple high-profile controversies involving allegations of bribery or corruption in recent years. One such case contributed to the downfall of the Democratic senator Bob Menendez in 2024. Another centred on a group of European parliamentarians in 2022. Qatar has also faced longstanding allegations surrounding its successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Most recently, Israeli authorities have raised concerns about possible Qatari efforts to exert influence, including reported suspicions involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle.
But accusations of bribes are only part of the problem. The Qataris are jihadi financiers. The country is the world’s top financier of the Muslim Brotherhood factions ranging from moderate to extreme. The group has a history of financing Hamas. Qatar is a patron of the murderous Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The regime has sheltered top financiers and operatives from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Today, it is bankrolling the new al-Qaeda government in Syria.
In other words, even as the United States recognises Qatar as a “Major Non-NATO ally”, there is a compelling case to designate Qatar as a “state sponsor of terrorism” with all relevant financial sanctions applied.
Maddeningly, Qatar has purchased enough soft power to run a remarkably effective influence operation in Washington that has all but removed the not-inconsiderable stench of illicit finance off the regime. Former and current senior officials have benefited from Qatar’s largesse. Hugely influential media figures in America are now believed to be in the pay of Qatar. Major financial interests are beholden to Qatar, too.
Europe is not faring much better. Qatar has gobbled up major brands and assets across Europe. And EU parliamentarians have been accused to be on the take from Qatar. But the quickening of the pace of Qatari money in Washington is alarming.
This appears to be a hugely consequential moment for Qatar, the United States, and I think it’s fair to include Europe. It’s the most obvious moment – just days after the United States accepted the Qatari plane – to force us to publicly wrestle with the Qatari conundrum. The West has, in recent decades, elected to ignore Qatar’s financial activities so long as lucrative Qatari investments continued. This has been not so much a policy as it has become a norm. What was not explicitly forbidden was permissible.
A debate about Qatar is now under way. Or at least, it was. In today’s chaotic news cycle, the crucial question of Qatari influence is now quickly fading into the noise. That’s not good news, because a reckoning is overdue. Reverting to the norm will do nothing to help untie this financial Gordian knot, which will only become more difficult to unravel.
Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the United States Department of the Treasury, is executive director at Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, DC. Follow him on X @JSchanzer
