Isolated Qatar hires firm founded by Trump aides amid crisis
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Qatar has hired a Washington influence firm founded by former top campaign aides to President Donald Trump and another specialized in digging up dirt on U.S. politicians, signalling it wants to challenge Saudi Arabia’s massive lobbying efforts in America’s capital amid a diplomatic dispute among Arab nations.
Hiring a firm once associated with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who left it in May over a dispute with his partners, shows Qatar wants access to a White House with close ties to Saudi Arabia. The firm retains Barry Bennett, a Trump campaign adviser, as well as others with ties to the president.
But matching Saudi Arabia, which scored a diplomatic coup by hosting Trump’s first overseas trip, could be a tough battle for Qatar, even if it does boast the world’s highest per-capita income due to its natural gas deposits.
“The Qataris are belatedly working up to the scale of the challenge they face,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University who lives in Seattle. “This whole crisis, now that it’s kind of settled down into a prolonged confrontation or standoff, it’s become almost a struggle to win the hearts and minds in D.C.”