‘A very nice gesture’: Behind Trump’s flying visit to Qatar

Say what you like about it, the plane is pretty incredible. A Boeing 747 that would typically carry 400 or so passengers, it has been fitted out to fly up to 89 people in almost absurd levels of comfort, all sleek leather and muted tones of caramel and beige.

Even lesser guests can sprawl on business class-style reclining seats and a giant sofa in the upper deck’s TV snug, reached by a sweeping staircase. Travellers atop the pecking order get their own guest bedrooms, with the piece de resistance a suite in the very nose of the plane with an ensuite that wouldn’t look out of place in a five-star hotel.

“The art deco-inspired and somewhat timeless interior of this aircraft is extremely lavish, to say the least,” reported defence industry site TWZ in 2020, when this “flying superyacht” came up for sale. It is estimated to be worth at least $600 million, possibly more given its no-expense-spared fitout by the Parisian interior design agency Cabinet Alberto Pinto. “Even for the richest people on earth,” said TWZ, “an aircraft like this would be a substantial investment.”

This is the plane that Qatar’s government is said to be offering to Donald Trump, or one very similar (it has a few) to serve as the President’s private transport known as Air Force One. The exact terms are unclear: last week Trump seemed to suggest the flying palace might be his to keep; or it might wind up in his presidential archive (as one of Ronald Reagan’s jets did); Qatari sources suggest it’s more likely to be a loan.

It has certainly rung alarm bells: many in Washington DC have raised ethical concerns about what would be the largest gift ever made to a US president by another nation and which raises the question of what might be expected in return (some characterised it as a “bribe”).

Trump doesn’t seem to see a problem – it is simply “a very nice gesture”, he told reporters at the White House. “Now, I could be a stupid person to say, ‘Oh no, we don’t want a free plane.’ We give free things out, we’ll take one too.” This was just days before Trump was to travel to Qatar, on his first presidential visit to the tiny Gulf state and the first by a US president since George W. Bush in 2003.

What’s Trump’s interest in Qatar? Where does the state fit in on the world stage? What’s in it for this master of the art of “soft power”?

What’s Qatar like?

Its regional cousins Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are known to many Australians for their airlines (Emirates and Etihad, respectively) and their usefulness as warm-weather stopovers on long flights to Europe. Qatar is a little more opaque. Its newly prestigious national carrier, Qatar Airways, claims an apparently unique business class configuration that allows four travellers to nestle in a lay-flat pod. (Its marketing was set back somewhat in 2020 when female passengers were pulled off a Sydney-bound flight in the capital, Doha, and subjected to invasive strip searches after a newborn baby was found abandoned in an airport bathroom.)

Qatar is also a newly wealthy petro-state, with a share of the world’s largest deposit of natural gas, the North Field, with Iran. Once considered a disappointing find (gas is harder to transport than oil), the field lay largely dormant after its discovery in 1971. Once technology allowed the gas to be liquefied and shipped (as liquefied natural gas, or LNG), it proved a goldmine, recognised as one of the last remaining vast deposits of fossil fuel, second only to the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has underpinned a high standard of living (for its citizens, at least, who enjoy free education, healthcare and internet) and the purchase of overseas assets such as Harrods department store (bought for $3 billion in 2010), London’s “Shard” skyscraper and stakes in The Savoy Hotel, Heathrow Airport and the upmarket Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, football team Paris Saint-Germain and New York’s Empire State Building.

Per capita, Qatar is now the world’s third-richest nation, behind Singapore and Luxembourg. As with other fast-developing Gulf states, it relies heavily on migrant workers from countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, for everything from construction to watch repairs – they make up nearly 90 per cent of the emirate’s population of about 2.7 million, leaving just a few hundred thousand locals on the thumb-shaped peninsula, which is about 160 kilometres long and 80 wide.

But in other ways, Qatar has followed a slightly different path to its neighbours, focusing as much on culture and education as commerce. It has mostly steered away from building the kind of glitzy infrastructure – indoor ski mountains, vast shopping malls, super-tall buildings and underwater hotels – that brings tourists to the UAE.

Doha, not that long ago a sandy port for pearl diving and fishing, today has the requisite angular skyscrapers but still retains plenty of the old town’s ambience, such as the redeveloped Souk Wakif market area, a picturesque warren of mud-daubed walls, meandering alleys, spice shops, restaurants and shisha lounges.

Other prized attractions include the national library, a space-age repository of more than a million books designed by the celebrated Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas; a museum of Islamic art by the equally celebrated Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei; and a market, or souk, specialising in the Middle Eastern sport of falconry. In “Education City”, meanwhile, are branches of well-known US universities, including colleges run by administrators from Georgetown and Northwestern. “There are a lot of international symposiums happening in Doha,” says Deakin University’s Shahram Akbarzadeh, a recent visitor. “They do want to promote themselves as an intellectual hub.”

Not everyone gets to speak out as they wish. Qatar is much more liberal than its neighbour Saudi Arabia, yet dissent is still severely curtailed, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Sexual acts between same-sex people are illegal with punishment of up to three years in prison, and women continue to require permission from a man to marry or work in many government jobs. The plight of migrant workers was highlighted by deaths of construction workers before the World Cup in 2022, but Amnesty says authorities have done little to investigate. That free internet comes with a catch – the government monitors email and social media. A Qatari poet was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for insulting the royal family (he was later pardoned).

Who runs Qatar?

Even before Qatar gained independence from Britain in 1971 (it had been a British protectorate before then), the nation was long dominated by the House of Thani. The al-Thanis came to the peninsula in the 18th century from what is today central Saudi Arabia. In the 19th century, Qatar was dominated by tribes, and it was the al-Thanis who signed a series of treaties with the British. “That’s how they were solely recognised as the rulers of Qatar, and were formalised as the rulers in the 1850s,” says Jessie Moritz, a senior lecturer at ANU’s Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies.

The current ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, became Qatar’s Emir in 2013 after his father, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, unexpectedly retired – the first voluntary changing of the guard in Qatar’s history. “They passed over power peacefully, which is a very rare example of a peaceful transfer of power in the Middle East,” says Moritz. (In 1995, Hamad bin Khalifa had taken control of the country in a “bloodless coup” from his father, who was in Geneva at the time.)

Hamad bin Khalifa’s legacy included the news outlet Al Jazeera, the Education City and expanding employment and training for women. His wife Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned forged a reputation as the “First Lady of Qatar” and co-founded the Qatar Foundation, the country’s largest state-owned non-profit. His son, the current emir, had a teenage dream to become a professional tennis star, prompting his parents to fly in German champion Boris Becker to provide lessons, according to The New York Times.

Today, there are thousands of members of the family in Qatar, although their power is concentrated in a few branches. Bloomberg estimated the family’s net wealth in 2024 to be $US172.9 billion (nearly $270 billion). The Emir owns a $US500m superyacht named Al Lusail, with an indoor swimming pool and movie theatre; his father’s $US400m yacht, the Katara, has 18 suites.

Ruling families in the Gulf states aren’t simply defined by extravagance. “They actually rule,” says Kristian Ulrichsen, author of Qatar and the Gulf Crisis. “The head of state is obviously a member of the family. The head of government, the prime minister, is almost always – certainly, in Qatar’s and Saudi’s case – a member of the family. And members of the family control the issue of foreign affairs, in most cases, defence and other key positions.”

Qatar’s parliament has limited powers to block legislation. Men and women can run (as independents) for 30 of the 45 seats in the Consultative Assembly, the Emir chooses the rest. Political parties as such are banned. The first general election was in 2021. The Emir also personally appoints the heads of the country’s ministries. Bottom line, according to the US non-profit advocate Freedom House: “Qatar’s hereditary emir holds all executive and legislative authority and ultimately controls the judiciary.”

Moritz, who researched Qatari residents’ perspectives of their leader in 2013-2014, found the rulers were popular, and not only because of free healthcare and education. “What Qataris told me is, ‘I think the government listens to me.’ And that’s different, right?” The al-Thani family holds its own royal courts, known as majalis, says Moritz. “People can come to visit them and petition them directly … you have direct access to rulers in such a small country in a way that you wouldn’t be able to do in a bigger country like Egypt.” There are also powerful tribal leaders involved in decision-making, says Geoff Harkness, a sociologist and author of Changing Qatar. The country’s strategic agendas, he says, are “created behind the scenes with discussions with longstanding, respected family members, and those traditions have been there for centuries”.

Why is Qatar sometimes called a “prickly Switzerland”?

Politically, too, Qatar has carved an unusual niche in the region, not always on the same page as its neighbours and expert in the art of so-called soft power, or projecting influence. Exhibit A: Trump’s free plane, the perfect gift for a president who already has everything, which will serve to bolster a vital relationship, even if there are no particular strings attached. (It is, apparently, on offer to temporarily replace the ageing Air Force One 747s, whose replacements have been delayed.)

“They are a different type of player,” says Ulrichsen. He cites Article 7 of Qatar’s constitution, which says foreign policy must be based on maintaining international peace and security by encouraging the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means. “We don’t do enemies,” foreign minister Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah said in 2014. “We talk to everyone. We cannot change geography, this is for sure, so whoever is in the vicinity of our geography has to be our close friend.”

A minnow trapped between the whales of Saudi Arabia and Iran, Qatar is also painfully aware of how exposed its economy would be during regional unrest. “Were there to be some catastrophic military conflict which would close the straits, then all the LNG exports from Qatar would be potentially blocked,” says Ulrichsen. “That’s why they see value in acting as a mediator, in that they can connect people who don’t or, for whatever reason, aren’t willing to talk directly to each other. Their first big success was in 2008 when they negotiated a settlement to a longstanding political standoff in Lebanon. That was, I think, when the world first began to notice that Qatar mediation was a thing.”

Qatar has offered asylum to opponents of other regimes (such as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood movement on the run from the Egyptian government, which designates it a terrorist organisation); it has allowed Syrian rebels and the Taliban to operate embassy-like offices in its capital; and it has maintained diplomatic links with Iran when others cut them. Qatar’s ties to Hamas have been particularly scrutinised, including allowing the Gaza-based terror group to maintain an office in the Qatari capital. It argued that doing so was also at the behest of the United States, to maintain diplomatic channels, and did not signify backing for the group but was instead a way of facilitating essential dialogue. Says Ulrichsen: “I think from an American point of view, they felt it better to have them in a country like Qatar, where they could be monitored but also engaged with directly should they need to be.”

More recently, Qatar has mediated between Hamas and Israel over ceasefires and hostage exchanges. And it is home to the US’s largest military encampment in the Middle East, Al Udeid Air Base (more on which in a moment).

For its diplomatic machinations, Qatar has been labelled the Gulf’s “problem child” or a “prickly Switzerland”. In 2017, several neighbours led by Saudi Arabia severed ties with Qatar, citing its links to known terrorist or opposition groups throughout the region. They closed borders and banned Qatari planes and ships from passing through their territory. “The other Gulf leaders’ patience with Doha’s sometimes-maverick regional policies may have finally snapped,” observed The Atlantic.

The dispute, officially ended in 2021, still festers behind the scenes. “In 2017, when the blockade happened, everybody in Qatar – or most people in Qatar – rallied around the leadership,” Ulrichsen says. “[The new Emir] hadn’t really had any challenges, but I just think that the way in which people in Qatar felt they were being ganged up on brought everyone closer together in a sense.”

Al Jazeera has been seen as provocative: its reporting on issues such as human rights abuses and the Arab Spring popular uprising of 2010 have not always gone down well. Owned by a private conglomerate, with partial funding from the Qatari government, Al Jazeera nominally operates free of state interference, although other regimes in the region find it impossible to believe the ruling family doesn’t have a hand in its editorial direction. It’s a “vein of contention” between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and many other Arab countries, says Shahram Akbarzadeh, “because they criticise Al Jazeera and accuse Qatar of fomenting trouble, of actually instigating unrest”.

In 2002, Saudi Arabia went so far as to withdraw its ambassador from Doha in response to Al Jazeera’s coverage of its domestic affairs. (Both countries, like Qatar, are majority Sunni – one of the two main branches of Islam, the other being Shia, as practised in Iran.)

What is Trump’s interest in the Middle East?

Sitting in a plush lounge last week in Doha with Sheikh Tamim, Trump praised the relationship between the US and Qatar as “a very great, loyal, beautiful friendship” then had another thought. He looked around and declared: “You look at this, it’s so beautiful. As a construction person, I’m seeing perfect marble. This is what they call ‘perfecto’. What a great job you’ve done. What a beautiful place.”

That Trump chose to make the first planned overseas trip of his second term to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE speaks volumes, says Ulrichsen, who suggests he is there to attract investment to the US and to “benefit his America-first agenda, or even Trump-first”. Moreover, he says, “I always thought that Trump was more at home in the Gulf. Just because he seems to be more of a Gulf-style leader in so many different ways. In terms of being larger-than-life, having a royal court around him with gatekeepers and senior advisers. And being willing to break things if you want to get your way. And, to some extent, the blurring of public and private interests as well.”

Qatar and the US are both heavily invested, diplomatically and strategically, in the Al Udeid Air Base, which has been an important staging post for missions in the region, including those against ISIS and in Afghanistan. Says Allen Fromherz, author of Qatar: A Modern History, “I think we need to be very clear-eyed here and understand that Qatar does, in fact, know where its ultimate security is coming from, and that is why it allows the United States to have the largest base in the Middle East on Qatari sovereign soil.”

Qatar particularly proved its reliability to the US during the States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 after nearly 20 years there, says Ulrichsen. “It was a very chaotic withdrawal, but the Qataris really helped out in terms of flying people out and putting refugees up in Doha and leveraging what networks they could to ensure people were able to get out.”

Trump’s visit at a state level, says Ulrichsen, “is all about deepening those commercial but increasingly geostrategic relationships, which perhaps, in the eyes of the administration, will form the next generation of US-Gulf links in the way that energy was perhaps the link in the past.”

Trump’s family has extensive interests in the region, too, with several large real estate deals in play. In April, the Trump Organisation, managed by Trump’s eldest sons, Eric and Donald Jr, partnered with a Qatari government-owned firm to build a new beachfront golf course in Qatar. (There are plans for a Trump-branded tower in Dubai and another Trump golf course and hotel in the lesser-known emirate of Oman as well as a Trump tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city.)

The ethics are blurry. In Qatar, Trump has claimed that he is clean because the land has been purchased not by his own firm but by a partner called Dar Global, a subsidiary of a Saudi real estate company that, according to The New York Times, has close ties to the Saudi government. In 2017, Trump made Saudi Arabia his first foreign destination as president. According to the Times, “When he left office, the kingdom became a key source of new business for his family. LIV Golf, a professional league backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and rival to the PGA Tour, has hosted tournaments at the Trump National Doral Golf Club near Miami.”

As for the plane, Democrats on the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee are investigating whether accepting the gift would violate the Constitution and have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel David Warrington whether this “nice gesture” had been solicited and was “intended as a bribe to Donald Trump”.

Meanwhile, there’s a sense that Qataris are puzzled by the fuss. “This is a very simple government-to-government dealing,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, the Prime Minister, told CNN. “I don’t see any controversy.” It’s not a new idea. In 2018, Qatar gave another converted 747, a sister ship, to Turkish President Recep Erdogan, reportedly as thanks for backing Qatar during the blockade crisis. Either way, says Deakin’s Akbarzadeh, it’s a “symbolic gesture that the royal family is making towards Trump. They know Trump likes luxury, so they are singing from this song sheet.” Yet the last laugh goes to Boeing in the US, which has just announced a record order – from Qatar, for up to 210 planes, worth about $150 billion.

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