Shadow Trilateral: Trump, Putin & Qatar

Steve Witkoff has been brokering a deal to isolate Europe and make Trump billions.

The Trump regime’s foreign policy is chaotic, but not random. A pattern is forming—a shadow trilateral agreement between Trump, Putin, and Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family.

There are well-established relationships between Trump’s family, the Qataris, and the Russians, a documented trail of contacts between the three parties, and a series of diplomatic moves, administration propaganda, and business deals that make the quid pro quo quite clear, unofficial though it may be.

Three recent unusual announcements bring this shadow trilateral into focus:

• Trump announced a “peace deal” between Israel and Hamas.

• Pete Hegseth said that Qatar would be granted an “air force facility” in Idaho—which he later tried to clarify as a “training facility.”

• Melania Trump said she had been in contact with Vladimir Putin and arranged for eight Ukrainian children to be returned to their parents. (Tens of thousands are still being “re-educated” in Russia.)

While these news items may seem unrelated, they are actually part of the same deal.

Melania Trump announces deal with Putin, White House, October 10th, 2025

Qatar and Al Thani

Qatar’s government is a repressive, theocratic monarchy that traces its origins back to a coalition of bedouin tribes pulled together by an ancestor of the current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. It survived with its sovereignty intact through diplomacy and a series of alliances with foreign governments, and successfully transformed its discovery of oil and LNG in the 1930s into international leverage. Qatar remains one of the wealthiest, most stable, and networked powers in the Middle East.

However, Qatar enforces a strict version of Islam on its population, including portions of Sharia law. The Al Thani regime has supported a number of terrorist movements—including Hamas, whose leadership has lived in Doha since being invited there by the Al Thani regime in 2012—after Hamas was expelled from Syria.

$1.5 billion flowed from Qatar to Hamas-controlled Gaza, with extensive evidence of direct collaboration between Al Thani and Hamas.

The Al Thani regime also hosts the Taliban in Doha, supports Al-Qaeda militants in Syria, and runs a “charitable association” whose founder is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Treasury.

Qatar has deepened its geopolitical ties with Putin and Russia, having already heavily invested in Russia—including a 19% stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft. Putin hosted the Qatari Emir at the Kremlin this past April 17th. Qatar also takes credit for facilitating “diplomacy” between Putin and Ukraine.

Qatari Emir Al Thani and Vladimir Putin, Kremlin, April 17, 2025

Trump Regime and Qatar

The Trump White House is not the first to push for a friendly relationship with Qatar—despite its repressive government and its ties to international terrorism. However, the highest levels of the Trump regime are financially connected to Qatar in ways that are wholly unprecedented.

• In 2019-2020, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s firm Ballard Partners received $115,000/month for her to lobby Congress on behalf of Qatar. Bondi formally registered as a foreign agent.

• FBI Director Kash Patel, however, did not register as a foreign agent for Qatar, despite the Embassy of Qatar being Patel’s client until November 2024. Just last year, Patel brought in $2.6 million dollars from consulting, speaking and book deals.

• Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was co-chair of Mercury Partners, which represented Qatar’s embassy.

• Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, now traveling with Kristi Noem as an unofficial deputy at DHS, was hired in 2017 by Qatar to get access to the first Trump administration.

• Trump and his family have thick connections to Qatar, including the 2018 bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue that saved Jared Kushner, billions more additional investments in Kushner’s Affinity Partners, a $5.5 billion Trump resort being planned in Doha, and a $400 million jet that Trump is turning into Air Force One.

But it is perhaps Steve Witkoff, Trump’s liaison-to-everyone, who may hold the most obvious key to the trilateral agreement between Al Thani, Trump, and Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin.

Putin and Witkoff, August 6th, 2025

Witkoff’s Travels

In August 2023, Al Thani’s sovereign wealth fund Qatari Investment Authority acquired Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan for $623 million. The owner at the time was the Witkoff Group.

Very early in his second administration, Trump tapped Steve Witkoff, a man with no foreign policy experience, to be the point man between:

• the U.S. and Russian Federation in ongoing negotiations over the war in Ukraine

• the U.S. and Qatar in ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas

This is a very strange portfolio for anyone, unless there is a relationship between these two foreign policy directives. A review of Witkoff’s travel logs since February 2025 shows overlapping missions to Moscow and Doha—an itinerary that connects every vertex of the triangle.

• Feb 4, 2025—Florida → Qatar Prime Minister

• Apr 11, 2025—Moscow → Vladimir Putin
  Fourth round of Ukraine-war talks; Kremlin advisers (including Kirill Dmitriev) present

• Apr 25, 2025—Moscow → Vladimir Putin
  Witkoff’s fourth meeting with Putin

• Apr 30, 2025—Trump signs resort deal with Qatar

• May 11 & May 21, 2025 → Qatar 747-8 “gift” acceptance

• Aug 6, 2025 — Moscow (The Kremlin) → Vladimir Putin
  The Kremlin posts the read-out/photos: “Meeting with U.S. President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff”

• Sep 12–13, 2025 — New York City → Qatari PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani (a.k.a. “MBAT”), with Donald Trump present after Israel took out Hamas leadership in Doha

• Oct 10, 2025—Washington → Gaza cease-fire packaging, Putin rehabilitation
  Witkoff (with Kushner) gets credit for shaping the Gaza deal framework alongside Qatar/Egypt; Melania announces deal with Putin for Ukrainian children

• Oct 11-13, 2025—Gaza visit → Post-cease-fire planning, Trump preparation
  Witkoff and Kushner on the ground with U.S. officials and 200 troops as part of post-war logistics—consistent with a Qatar-mediated track—with Trump to join soon

Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, Ivanka Trump, Tel Aviv, October 11, 2025

Quid Pro Quo

The deal that appears to have been struck between Trump, Putin, and Al Thani is not that complicated: Qatar will provide leverage in the global energy war and a humanitarian face to Trump and Putin—and funnel billions to Trump and his family. In exchange, Trump has given Qatar an Article 5-like security guarantee by executive order, a base inside the United States, and a whitewashed role as mediator.

Putin’s role is illustrated by a story Saturday in the Moscow Times: “Putin Praises Trump’s “Real Efforts” Toward Peace, Blasts Nobel Committee.”

In short, Putin is being rehabilitated by Trump, and vice versa, with Qatar’s wealth and energy resources as backup.

Isolating Europe

Geopolitically, a backchannel relationship between the U.S., Russia, and Qatar could explain why, for example, Trump demanded that “Europe immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia” during his unhinged speech at the United Nations. While this may seem like an aggressive move toward forcing another “peace deal” from Putin, it also very effectively isolates Europe, putting them in a double bind.

• If Europe complies, it hurts its own economies, drains leverage, and becomes dependent on U.S. and Qatari LNG to fill the gap.

• If Europe refuses, Trump can claim Europe is “funding Putin” and justify withholding NATO support, painting the EU as unreliable.

A shadow trilateral could also explain why Trump announced a 100% tariff on China on Friday, sending markets into a tailspin. Trump will demand Europe follow his lead or face consequences themselves, once again isolating them from energy sources and increasing the leverage of the Trump-Putin-Qatar nexus.

End Game

As I‘ve written, the Trump regime’s chief foreign policy goal appears to be to destroy the global world order defined after WWII. The worldview of the people behind this project is far closer to Aleksandr Dugin than Eisenhower, or even Reagan.

The Carving Up: The Post-WWII World Order Is Over

America is being forcibly separated from our historic allies and thrust into relationships and agreements which have no benefit to Americans, our allies, or global security. They benefit a small group of oligarchs and ideologues alone.

The last time a secret agreement between world powers of this kind took place, it was in 1938 between Molotov and Ribbentrop, the fateful short-term alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The subsequent simultaneous invasion of Poland in 1939 began the worst conflict in world history.

86 years later, just last week, Poland had to scramble jets to intercept Russian drones in their airspace. History is not repeating, it’s being inverted.

“We are all — though naturally each to a different extent — responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery; none of us is merely its victim: we are all also its co-creators.”

— Václav Havel, New Year’s Address to the Nation, Jan 1, 1990.

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