President Donald Trump met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Friday, days after an Israeli strike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha strained ties between the US and a key Middle East ally.
The dinner meeting, reported earlier by other news organizations, was confirmed by a White House official, who said it would take place in New York. Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was also slated to attend.
Hamad Al Muftah, deputy chief of mission at Qatar’s US embassy, posted on X that a “great dinner with POTUS” had ended, but provided no other details.
The premier, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, met earlier on Friday with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the foreign ministry said on X.
Israeli’s attack on Tuesday, intended to take out the Hamas leadership in Doha, intensified tensions in the Middle East and placed the US in an awkward position with Qatar, an ally that’s home to the largest American military base in the region and boasts a massive sovereign wealth fund that’s pledged to invest billions in the US.
Trump made a rare break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the attack didn’t “advance Israel or America’s goals” and sought to calm Qatari anger over the strike. The president this week said he’d spoken to Qatari leaders to assure them such an incident wouldn’t happen again on their soil and that he felt “very badly about the location of the attack.”
Still, the ripple effect threatens to extend well beyond US-Qatari ties. Other Arab leaders have seized on the incident, condemning it and questioning the value of American security guarantees. Trump has sought to encourage more Arab nations to normalize ties with Israel and is seeking to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, efforts that could be undercut by what happened in Doha.
The United Arab Emirates on Friday summoned Israeli Deputy Head of Mission David Ohad Horsandi over the attack on Doha and “hostile” statements made by Netanyahu.
The episode threatens to accelerate Arab efforts to expand their alliances by forging stronger ties with other global powers, according to experts.
Trump has said he learned of the attack too late to stop it, and had little time to warn Qatar. Sheikh Mohammed at a press conference earlier in the week said the US only informed his country about the attack 10 minutes after it occurred.
Qatar was one of the countries Trump visited during a Middle East swing earlier this year.
During that visit, Qatar pledged that its sovereign wealth fund would invest another $500 billion in the US. Qatar is also behind one of the biggest foreign gifts ever given to the US government — a luxury Boeing Co. 747-8 jumbo jet that Trump has said could be used on a temporary basis as a new Air Force One.
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