Qatar’s new designation as a U.S. non-NATO ally will help shield it from Saudi or Emirati pressure, as well as incentivize Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to adjust their own policies to earn the same designation. However, a new U.S. president could reverse this decision and make Doha vulnerable again. During a Jan. 31 state visit with Qatar’s emir, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that he would soon notify Congress that the United States would designate the Arab Gulf state as a major non-NATO ally (MNNA), a diplomatic and legal classification that offers enhanced training, defense cooperation and military research. Biden said the announcement was long overdue following decades of U.S.-Qatari coordination and Qatar’s hosting of the region’s largest U.S. military base. But despite also being major U.S. defense partners and purchasers of U.S. military equipment, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are not designated MNNAs due to both countries’ controversial human rights records and foreign policies in war-torn Yemen and Libya.

Beyond hosting troops, the United States has relied on Qatar for evacuations from Afghanistan, hosting negotiations with the Taliban, aiding Israeli security by providing aid to the Gaza Strip, and facilitating U.S.-Iran talks.
The other MNNA-designated countries in the Middle East include Kuwait, Bahrain, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco.
With the MNNA designation, Qatar has an extra layer of diplomatic protection from the United States should the United Arab Emirates and/or Saudi Arabia resume pressure campaigns against Doha. The Qatar blockade ended in January 2021 just as the Biden administration took office, but none of the drivers of the blockade were resolved as Qatar held out rather than changed policies. While a full resumption of the blockade appears unlikely in the near term, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi might resort to disinformation campaigns, tariffs, boycotts or visa processing slowdowns, as they did before the blockade, to try to rattle Qatar’s reputation and economy — particularly during the high profile World Cup games, which will be hosted in Doha at the end of this year. But if these pressure campaigns emerge, they will likely be modest following the U.S. move to upgrade its strategic view of Qatar. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates want to alienate the United States as they still seek its protection against Iran and cooperation against threats like Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates demanded Qatar break ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, close or control the coverage of its state-backed Al Jazeera media organization, expel Turkish troops in Qatar, reduce ties with Iran, align its strategic priorities with those of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and take other broad measures to prevent the country from hosting media or individuals critical of Saudi and Emirati policies. None of these demands were met, though Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates still seek to prevent Qatari influence from undermining their political stability and contain Iranian influence in the Arab Gulf.
The blockade ended in part because of the election of a new administration in the United States. Former President Donald Trump tacitly backed the blockade initially and did not apply pressure to end it. But on the campaign trail, Biden was more broadly critical of Saudi and Emirati behavior and implied he would reframe relations with both countries upon taking office.
To earn the same designation, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be incentivized to further adjust their policies to meet U.S. expectations, such as keeping tensions with Qatar low, publicly supporting U.S. efforts to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal, avoiding deepening ties with Washington’s rival China, avoiding human rights outrages at both home and abroad, and supporting U.S. goals to de-escalate the civil war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likely to seek their own MNNA designation to both maintain diplomatic parity with rival Qatar, as well as strengthen their own security relationships with the United States (which is still their primary security guarantor). But both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s policies have come under sustained criticism from lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, which will need to be alleviated before the Arab Gulf states can nudge the Biden administration to consider them as MMNA designees. Both countries have already begun altering some of their more controversial policies and behaviors, in part as they try to avoid a major diplomatic split with the United States under Biden. But the desire to be seen as the same kind of reliable ally as Qatar will incentivize the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to make further concessions to appease U.S. politicians, especially those in Congress.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates lobbied against the original Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015, helping fuel the arguments that ultimately led to the United States withdrawing from the agreement in 2019. After suffering attacks by Iran, both countries are now more amenable to a new nuclear deal and favor de-escalation with Tehran.
Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are actively pursuing new relations with China, even on the defense level, which has fed into U.S. concerns about Beijing’s growing global influence.
To ease these concerns, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi could either slow their outreach to China, or shift their relationships with Beijing to focus more on the economic rather than military sphere. In November 2021, the United Arab Emirates reportedly shut down a site the United States claimed was a secret Chinese naval base.
Saudi Arabia and/or the United Arab Emirates could release some of the numerous detained activists and dissidents in each country to curry favor with the United States. Saudi Arabia has already freed at least one prominent women’s rights activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, who was released from prison in February 2021 but remains under supervision.
A future U.S. president, especially if Trump returns for a second term, might be tempted to reverse Qatar’s designation, politicizing the MNNA category. Some U.S. politicians have criticized Qatar for its ties to Iran, Turkey and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. These same politicians pushed the Trump administration to support the Qatar blockade in 2017-21. And they could remain a force if Trump returns to the White House in 2024 or if another Republican president with a similar political base takes power.

Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2019 in part because some of his supporters wanted to see the United States increase pressure on Tehran and its allies. Many of these Iran hawks argue Qatar enables Iranian behavior by maintaining economic and diplomatic ties with Tehran.