In Exchange for a Luxury Jet from Qatar, Trump Issues an Executive Order Committing the U.S. to Defending it from External Aggression Like NATO Allies

Oct 01, 2025

What does the bribe of a $400 million luxury jet get you? Apparently, it gets you turnkey access to the entire military power of the United States. That seems to be the upshot of a new executive order extending U.S. military protection over Qatar in a way that has been extended only (in theory) to our NATO allies—and not, say, to Ukraine or Taiwan.

CNN reports:

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order for the US to guarantee the security of Qatar—a significant commitment to a non-NATO, Arab ally.
“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the order, which is dated Monday, reads. …
“In the event of such an attack, the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures—including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military—to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability,” it reads.

Mediaite reports on the blowback from conservatives, who do not regard this—along with the construction of a Qatari Air Force training base in Idaho—as their vision of “America First.” We should also note that this has been done, not through a treaty approved by the Senate, but with an executive order, and rather than being the product of open debate, it is the result of influences we can only guess at.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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