\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to the plan that Defense SecretaryPete Hegseth announced Friday, Idaho\u2019s Mountain Home Airbase will soon house a site for Qatar\u2018s Emiri Air Force pilots to train on F-15 jets, which angered some MAGA supporters who don\u2019t trust the Qatari government and who (wrongly) believed Qatar was building its own base in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cToday, we\u2019re announcing a letter of acceptance in building a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho,\u201d Hegseth said while standing beside Qatari Minister of Defense Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday. Some in the MAGAverse took this to mean that Qatar would have its own base, rather than building a facility on an existing U.S. base.<\/p>\n
\n\tJ.D. Vance was asked on Fox News to clarify the Trump administration\u2019s announcement on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThis is largely a fake story,\u201d Vance said of those who believed that Qatar would build its own base in the U.S. \u201cWe continue to have \u2014\u00a0with countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes we train together, sometimes we work together in other ways. The reporting that somehow there is going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that\u2019s just not true. We are continuing to work with a number of our Arab friends to ensure we are able to enforce this peace, but we\u2019re not going to let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil, so there\u2019s a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHegseth\u2019s original announcement sent shockwaves through some in the MAGA universe.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNever thought I\u2019d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on U.S. soil so they can murder Americans,\u201d far-right influencer Laura Loomer posted last week. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be voting in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter Loomer\u2019s criticism, Hegseth later issued an \u201cimportant clarification\u201d to his original comments, writing on X (formerly Twitter) that \u201cQatar will not have their own base in the United States \u2014 nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tThat did not appease Loomer, who responded in part, \u201cA jihadist in a suit is still a jihadi. It\u2019s a threat to our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSteve Bannon, who was White House strategist in Trump\u2019s first term, told Newsweek<\/em> he believes there \u201cshould never be a military base of a foreign power on the sacred soil of America.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tConservative radio host Mark Levin wrote on X, \u201cI never dreamed of anything like this. We\u2019ve not only agreed to go to war for Qatar but they\u2019re now building an air force facility in our country. Shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe added, \u201cThis is very serious\u2026 A new facility with our base. Train their pilots with their jets they bought from us. Despite the fact they enabled [terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] to escape and plot 9\/11 and pour billions into our country promoting Islamism and anti-Americanism\u2026 Outrageous to most of us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis is not the first time that a foreign nation has set up a training facility inside the U.S. In fact, Singapore houses several training programs in the U.S., including Exercise Valiant Mark, where, according to the Singapore Army\u2019s website, the \u201cU.S. training grounds provide the perfect environment for large-scale vehicular, mechanised and combined arms manoeuvre training, as well as air-land integrated live-firing exercises in both conventional and urban scenarios.\u201d Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K. have also trained their forces a U.S. bases for many years. And U.S. military forces have also trained at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tBut to those on the right, allowing Qatar to train its forces on U.S. soil is different. For one thing, both Trump and conservatives have long criticized Qatar\u2019s government for funding terrorists.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe nation of Qatar, historically, has been a funder of terrorism at a very high level,\u201d Trump said in June 2017 in an address at the White House, adding that \u201cthe time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding\u2026 and its extremist ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut in his second term, Trump has cozied up to Qatar\u2019s authoritarian government. Earlier this year, Qatar gifted Trump a $400 million luxury jet that the U.S. will pay nearly $1 billion to transform into the next Air Force One, a move that also drew criticism from Loomer. Trump accepted the plane, nicknamed a \u201cflying palace,\u201d despite national security experts\u2019 concerns that doing so could lead to security breaches since the Qatari government could have hidden listening or tracking devices on the plane. <\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tTrump earlier this month signed an executive order that promised Qatar the same kind of protection granted to our NATO allies, meaning an attack against Qatar will be treated as an attack on the U.S., and the U.S. will take \u201cdiplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military\u201d action to defend Qatar. President Joe Biden in 2022 designated Qatar as one of the U.S.\u2019s major non-NATO allies, which helped establish a working relationship between the U.S. and Qatari military.<\/p>\n \n\tEven the Trump Organization, Trump\u2019s private corporation run by his sons, has been working closely with Qatar. The company signed a deal in May to build a Trump-branded golf course, golf club, and luxury villas on the coast of the Arab nation north of Doha. This is the first foreign deal finalized by the Trump Organization since Trump became president again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to the plan that Defense SecretaryPete Hegseth announced Friday, Idaho\u2019s Mountain Home Airbase will soon house a site for Qatar\u2018s Emiri Air Force pilots to train on F-15 jets, which angered some MAGA supporters who don\u2019t trust the Qatari government and who (wrongly) believed Qatar was building its own base in the U.S. \u201cToday,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1512,221,2004,257,1915,4014,744,1840,81,811],"class_list":{"0":"post-27637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-build","9":"tag-facility","10":"tag-happy","11":"tag-isnt","12":"tag-lets","13":"tag-maga","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-qatar","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-u-s"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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