“One possibility would be to impose conditions on our own trading partners and say you want to work with us then you have got to make a commercial choice,” he said.

Qatar has been plunged into a diplomatic crisis since Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed all ties earlier this month over the country’s alleged ties to terrorism, sending the stock market plummeting and panicked citizens to supermarkets where they emptied shelves of food.

Families have been split up and myriad businesses affected by demands for Qatari nationals to leave the countries involved, and vice versa.

Qatar has denied the allegations against it. Its rulers have so far surprised Riyadh and its allies by refusing to give into the bloc’s lengthy demands, which include shunning Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood and shuttering Qatari owned news outlet Al Jazeera, in order for air, land and sea links to be restored.