President Donald Trump condemned Qatar for being an historical “funder of terrorism at a very high level” during a press conference Friday.
The remarks from the president came as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain are engaging in a blockade with Qatar. The four nations cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar Monday over anger that the nation had been getting too cozy with Iran and allegedly supporting jihadi terrorists.
Qatar hosts the largest American base in the Middle East. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged an end to the blockade Friday and said that it was hurting the U.S.’ fight against ISIS. Trump, however, never mentioned the blockade. An administration official later told reporters that the president does support ending the blockade, but not re-establishing diplomatic relations.
Trump’s remarks Friday piggybacked on a Tuesday tweet in which he said, “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!”
The president said during the press conference that “nations came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior.”
“So we had a decision to make,” Trump added. “Do we take the easy road or do we finally take a hard and necessary action? We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding.”
He went on to say that Qatar has to “end that funding and its extremist ideology in terms of funding.”
“I want to call on all other nations to immediately stop supporting terrorism. Stop teaching people to kill other people. Stop filling their minds with hate and intolerance,” Trump said, adding, “I won’t name other countries, but we are not done solving the problem.”