By Tim Abel
Donald Trump is no
stranger to doing business in the Middle East, yet for some unknown reason, he
could never quite crack the Qatar market.
Sure, he had been
dealing in the hotel business with the Saudis for at least two decades and has
his name on quite a few golf courses in the UAE.
However, no matter how
hard he tried, business deals in Qatar always seemed unattainable for him.
Now a feud between these three Gulf nations
broke out on June 5, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Arab
allies all broke off trade, travel and diplomatic relations with Qatar as
punishment for what they said was its support of terrorism.
Many scholars, however, believe that the
fallout is the result of a struggle for power and autonomy.
It didn’t take long for Trump to throw his
support behind the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the dispute. They are the
two countries out of the three where he has business interests.
Trump said his reason for backing Saudi
Arabia and the UAE is that Qatar is a “funder of terror at a very high level,” but was this
his only reason?
The Pentagon and the State Department have a different opinion
on the issue to the alleged president, with the secretaries of defense and
state trying to encourage unity against a common enemy in ISIS by staying
completely neutral on the topic of Qatar.
Unlike Donald Trump, the Pentagon and the State Department don’t
have personal assets in the area.
That’s right, Trump is the first U.S. president in 40 years to
maintain private business interests after entering the White House and many
critics believe maintaining a business empire will skew the president’s ability
to make rational diplomatic decisions that truly are for the good of the
people.
Trump may have signed his business empire over to his
sons at a press
conference in January, but as the Director of the Office of Government Ethics warned,
stepping away from management without giving up ownership does not diminish his
financial incentives or conflicts
“Other countries in the
Middle East see what is happening and may think, ‘We should be opening golf
courses’ or ‘We should be buying rooms at the Trump International,’” said Brian
Egan, a State Department legal adviser under the Obama administration.
“Even if
there is no nefarious intent on behalf of the president or the Trumps, for a
president to be making money from business holdings in sensitive places around
the world is likely to have an impact.”
When the trouble between
Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar kicked off, Dana Smith, the American Ambassador to
Qatar, retweeted a Treasury Department article praising Qatar for cracking
down on extremist financing, which you can read HERE.
Not long after Smith’s tweet, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Qatar “to
be responsive to the concerns of its neighbors,” while also adding, “We call on
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to
ease the blockade against Qatar.”
Then there’s Trump’s
response.
He was completely in favor of the blockade the second it started, declaring on
Twitter that his visit “was already paying off.”
He continued to defend it even after Tillerson had called for it
to be eased, saying that “The time had come to call on Qatar to end its
funding” of terrorism.
Remember, this is the man who said of the Saudis back in
2015 that he likes
them because they buy apartments from him. “They spend $40 million, $50
million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”
It’s not just the
purchasing of apartments that Trump has to thank Saudi Arabia for.
In 1995, Donald Trump sold the Plaza Hotel to a partnership
consisting of a Saudi prince, the same prince that paid $18 million for Trump’s
yacht in 1991 and a Singaporean investor. This $325 million deal on the Plaza
enabled Trump to escape a default on his loans.
So next time you hear
Trump weigh in on the Middle East, ask yourself if he is thinking of the safety
of the American people or his own back pocket.
Author Tim
Abel is a former English teacher from Australia who currently
lives in Singapore and spends a lot of time traveling the world for his wife's
work. Besides covering political news for Addicting Info, he also writes his
own blog, drtanstravels.com
