The BBC has obtained leaked emails that show a lobbying effort to get US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sacked for failing to support the United Arab Emirates against Qatar.
Major Trump fundraiser and UAE-linked businessman Elliott Broidy met US President Donald Trump in October 2017 and urged him to sack Tillerson, the emails reveal.
In other emails, he calls the top US diplomat "a tower of Jello", "weak" and says he "needs to be slammed".
Saudi Arabia, UAE and a number of Arab countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in June 2017 over its alleged support for terrorism, a claim which it denies. The unprecedented move was seen as a major split between Gulf countries, who are also close US allies.
Broidy's defence company Circinus has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with the UAE, according to the New York Times newspaper.
He had recently returned from the UAE when he met Trump at the White House in October.
According to a memorandum he prepared of the meeting, Broidy urged continued support of US allies the UAE and Saudi Arabia and advised Trump against getting involved in last year's row with Qatar.
Broidy called Qatar "a television station with a country" - alluding to broadcaster Al Jazeera - and said it was doing "nothing positive", according to the emails.
He said he touted a regional counter-terrorism force being set up by the UAE that his company was involved with, and suggested that the US president "sit down" with Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.
"I offered that MBZ [the crown prince] is available to come to the US very soon and preferred a quiet meeting in New York or New Jersey. President Trump agreed that a meeting with MBZ was a good idea," Broidy wrote in an email.
He also said he advised the president on Tillerson - who was "performing poorly and should be fired at a politically convenient time".
Tillerson had criticised the blockade of Qatar and called for it to be eased.
