The vast bulk of Donald Trump’s presidential playbook centres on deal-making. On matters as diverse as trade and foreign policy, the approach seems broadly consistent: sweep away such guardrails as global rules of free trade or geopolitical alliances, and reduce matters to a suite of country-by-country agreements. In this way, there is no need for the US even to feign consistency, or fealty to any set of overarching principles. Trump doesn’t need a coherent philosophy on tariffs or democracy, sovereignty or even war. In this world, there are no rules, or doctrines. There is only leverage.
In this way, Trump hopes to achieve everything from the enrichment of America to a Nobel Peace Prize. The early signs are not encouraging, especially on the world peace front given both Russia’s war on Ukraine and Israel’s annihilation of Gaza are only continuing apace, apparently impervious to the art of Trump’s dealing. But Israel’s bombing of Qatar this week, targeting Hamas officials, represents something even deeper. At issue now isn’t merely whether Trump will succeed in making deals. It’s whether other nations will any longer see much reason to bother trying.
Illustration by Simon Letch
Trump has condemned what he has described as “unilaterally bombing inside Qatar – a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace”. The crux of Trump’s ire is the last point he raises: Qatar is central to Trump’s deal-making. Specifically, it is a key player in any ceasefire or peace deal that would, in addition to halting the carnage in Gaza, return the remaining Israeli hostages home. Indeed, there can be such no deal without Hamas, and Qatar can bring them to the table.
Yet among those Israel killed was the son of Hamas’ top negotiator. This could only have been an attempt to kill the father. That is, Israel is ostensibly engaging in peace negotiations with Hamas, while attempting to kill the very people with whom it is negotiating.
At this point there are two possibilities. One is that this was a relatively spontaneous attack, perhaps in response to this week’s terrorist attack on a Jerusalem bus, as Israel’s defence minister has said. If so, Israel has chosen the very moment Hamas was considering Trump’s most recent ceasefire proposal – whose terms Trump said Israel had already accepted. To that end, Hamas’ chief negotiator held talks with Qatar’s prime minister this week. To try to kill that negotiator while he’s formulating his response is a strange way to pursue a peace deal.
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The more likely scenario – confirmed by Israeli sources – is that this attack had been in planning for months. In that case, Israel can only have been negotiating under false pretences during that time. That would render the negotiations a charade, while the Netanyahu government’s forever war rolls on: a war that is now its own end, having proceeded well past what the Israeli army deems sound military objectives. And if those negotiations were a charade, then Donald Trump, Dealmaker in Chief, has been presiding over nothing.
It is not even four months ago that Israel bombed Iran, declaring an intention to degrade or destroy Iran’s nuclear program. This, too, occurred while Trump was holding negotiations, this time with a view to preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. In that case, Israel attacked mere days before a scheduled US-Iran meeting. And while those talks had shown signs of becoming unproductive, Trump was proceeding with them all the same. And here, too, Israel targeted a leading Iranian negotiator (unsuccessfully, it later turned out). Needless to say, whatever else Israel’s bombs destroyed, Trump’s negotiations were among the rubble.
In the lead up to this, Trump had always said publicly he opposed Israeli strikes on Iran. In the aftermath, he claimed he had allowed them, and Iran had been given a negotiation deadline that expired the day before Israel struck. That is hard to square with the fact a meeting was still scheduled for the coming days, but either way, Trump had gone from opposing a strike and trying to strike a deal, to supporting one and joining the war in a matter of days.
