Qatar hires Trump-linked lobbyist ahead of emir’s visit
Doha is turning to well-connected Republican operatives amid an intra-Gulf spat.
Qatar has hired a lobbyist with close ties to President Donald Trump and drummed up business in a handful of Republican states ahead of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s White House meeting on Tuesday.
The Qatari Embassy in Washington recently hired Ballard Partners, a Florida-based lobbying shop that worked for Trump before he became president, according to lobbying records that were made public today. And Doha also added several new Florida hires to its team of lobbyists from Mercury Public Affairs to help with federal and state issues.
In conjunction with the emir’s visit, top Qatari economic officials and business leaders are touring the East Coast promoting commercial ties in Miami, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina, where Boeing’s Dreamliner is produced. The multipronged US tour mirrors a similar effort by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose country is leading a 10-month-old embargo against Qatar over its support for political Islamists and close ties to Iran.
The Qataris “have been looking for business, but here in Washington what appears to be the dominant issue in the discussion would be to try to resolve this rift,” Simon Henderson, the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Gulf and Energy Policy Program, told Al-Monitor.
