Qatar’s US Influence Operations: Soft Power and Crisis Mediation

Qatar’s US influ­ence oper­a­tions have become increas­ing­ly visible—and controversial—during 2025, as the nation pur­sues both high-pro­file ges­tures and qui­et diplo­ma­cy. On 26 Sep­tem­ber 2025, the Quin­cy Insti­tute report­ed that Qatar has simul­ta­ne­ous­ly broad­ened its pres­ence as a diplo­mat­ic deal­mak­er and medi­a­tor in some of the world’s tough­est con­flicts, includ­ing Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza. The arti­cle begins:

Whether you call it the “palace in the sky,” a “$400 mil­lion gift,” or “Bribe Force One,” the jet the Qatari gov­ern­ment gift­ed to Don­ald Trump in May 2025, to be used as Air Force One, became an inter­na­tion­al scan­dal with few peers. The plane, which might be the most valu­able gift any for­eign gov­ern­ment has ever giv­en to the U.S., quick­ly drew the ire of Trump’s crit­ics and sup­port­ers alike. Democ­rats on the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee released a state­ment say­ing that accept­ing the jet “cre­ates a clear con­flict of inter­est, rais­es seri­ous nation­al secu­ri­ty ques­tions, invites for­eign influ­ence, and under­mines pub­lic trust in our gov­ern­ment.” Sev­er­al Repub­li­can law­mak­ers, includ­ing Sen. Rand Paul of Ken­tucky and Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader John Thune of South Dako­ta, also voiced dis­com­fort over the gift. Qatar was quick to get into dam­age con­trol mode, insist­ing on a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing stat­ing that the plane was worth $200 mil­lion (far less than the report­ed fig­ure) and that the trans­fer was a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment trans­ac­tion, accord­ing to an offi­cial famil­iar with the mat­ter. While the plane gar­nered front-page head­lines, Qatar has more qui­et­ly been estab­lish­ing itself as a deal­mak­er in some of the thorni­est U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy issues of our time.

Read more: https://quincyinst.org/research/soft-power-hard-influence-how-qatar-became-a-giant-in-washington/#h‑introduction

Key Points

• Qatar’s US influ­ence oper­a­tions have entered the spot­light due to the con­tro­ver­sial gift of a $400 mil­lion jet, rais­ing con­cerns about poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est and for­eign influence.

• The plane con­tro­ver­sy prompt­ed bipar­ti­san Con­gres­sion­al scruti­ny, with Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans alike voic­ing unease.

• Along­side high-pro­file ges­tures, Qatar has cul­ti­vat­ed a role as a lead­ing medi­a­tor in inter­na­tion­al crises, such as those in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza, with ten active medi­a­tions as of July 2025.

•  The bulk of Qatar’s influ­ence is built through offi­cial diplo­mat­ic chan­nels rather than illic­it influ­ence operations.

Qatar’s US Influence Playbook: A Shift to MAGA and the Rightwing

Qatar has con­struct­ed a mul­ti­fac­eted Wash­ing­ton influ­ence archi­tec­ture that proved resilient dur­ing recent cri­sis test­ing, as Israeli strikes on Hamas fig­ures in Doha inter­sect­ed with years of sys­tem­at­ic lob­by­ing, media cul­ti­va­tion, and high-lev­el access devel­op­ment. Depart­ment of Jus­tice fil­ings reveal Qatar shift­ed con­ser­v­a­tive media focus dra­mat­i­cal­ly fol­low­ing the 2024 elec­tion, redi­rect­ing for­eign agent com­mu­ni­ca­tions from gen­er­al out­lets to right-wing plat­forms and MAGA-aligned influ­encers in a strate­gic realign­ment. This tac­ti­cal piv­ot built on Qatar’s broad­er cam­paign to inten­si­fy right-wing media pen­e­tra­tion through coor­di­nat­ed sto­ry place­ments, sub­stan­tial con­sul­tant pay­ments, and orches­trat­ed high-pro­file inter­views designed to shape con­ser­v­a­tive nar­ra­tives. The effec­tive­ness of these rela­tion­ships became evi­dent when the recent Doha attack prompt­ed the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to pri­vate­ly rebuke Israeli lead­er­ship while pub­licly sup­port­ing UN con­dem­na­tion, demon­strat­ing Qatar’s abil­i­ty to acti­vate sym­pa­thet­ic US respons­es despite host­ing Hamas representatives.

Beyond tra­di­tion­al lob­by­ing, Qatar has diver­si­fied its soft pow­er port­fo­lio through cul­tur­al and media ini­tia­tives, includ­ing strate­gic esports indus­try expan­sion tar­get­ing glob­al youth audi­ences and Media City part­ner­ship devel­op­ment with inter­na­tion­al news orga­ni­za­tions that drew expert warn­ings about poten­tial influ­ence oper­a­tions. High-stakes diplo­mat­ic chan­nels have includ­ed White House lux­u­ry jet nego­ti­a­tions as part of broad­er access-build­ing efforts across US polit­i­cal net­works. Region­al com­plex­i­ties inter­sect with Wash­ing­ton oper­a­tions as inter­nal Hamas-Qatar coor­di­na­tion doc­u­ments report­ed by Israeli media inten­si­fied scruti­ny of Doha’s claimed neu­tral­i­ty, while Euro­pean pro­ceed­ings exposed Qatar’s influ­ence net­works through Dutch court tes­ti­mo­ny on alleged financ­ing chan­nels and Israeli polit­i­cal PR cam­paigns designed to reha­bil­i­tate Qatar’s image before the World Cup.

Exter­nal references:

• Doha attack tests Qatar’s DC machine
• Con­ser­v­a­tive media tar­get­ed by Qatari for­eign influ­ence operations
• Doha Strikes High­light Clash­ing Visions of the Mid­dle East

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.