Planes on the brain: Trump covets jet gift, announces Boeing deal on Qatar trip

Yahoo

15-05-2025

Ahead of his trip to Qatar and the Middle East this week, President Donald Trump cooed over Qatar's planned gift of a Boeing 747 jet, saying he would be "stupid" not to accept a "free, very expensive airplane."
Aboard Air Force One, Trump lamented to Fox News host Sean Hannity of the U.S. government plane's comparative old age of 40 years and lackluster appearance next to Qatar's, Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates' "brand new Boeing 747s."
"You see ours next to it. This is like a totally different plane," Trump said.
It was not the last time planes were mentioned on the president's first overseas business trip during his second term – the White House announced on May 14 that Qatar Airways will buy more than 200 new jets from Boeing.
As Trump doubles down on accepting the luxury plane from Qatar despite ethics concerns, Virginia-based Boeing has announced a plane deal with a foreign country's airline for less than half the price originally announced.
Speaking to reporters as he sat down with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to sign economic and defense agreements, Trump said the deal was "the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing," adding, "that's pretty good."
"It's over $200 billion but 160 in terms of the jets, that's fantastic," Trump said. In its official announcement later that day, the White House issued a corrected, much lower number – $96 billion agreement for up to 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft.
Qatar Airways said in a news release that the deal was the largest aircraft order in its history.
The Qatar Airways deal wasn't the first time during Trump's Middle East trip that Boeing cashed in – AviLease, an aircraft leasing firm owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, ordered as many as 30 Boeing jets, the airplane maker announced May 13, as Trump visited Saudi Arabia.
More: Fighter jets, chandeliers, a Cybertruck: See the pomp of Trump's Middle East visit
The plane Qatar has offered to Trump, by contrast, has no price tag, sparking concerns from both Democrats and Republicans of corruption and that it violates the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which says gifts from foreign officials and countries are off limits for U.S. officials.
"The American people should make their disgust known: There is no room for this kind of flagrant disregard of the Constitution in the skies above," Norman Eisen, Virginia Canter and Richard W. Painter – all former White House legal counsels – wrote in a New York Times opinion article.
Democratic lawmakers were also incensed. "This cannot be allowed to stand. Our foreign policy cannot simply be a mechanism to make Donald Trump and his family rich," Sen. Chris Murray, D-Conn., said in a video statement.
Trump has countered that the plane is a "gift, free of charge" to the Defense Department – not to him personally.
"Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done," he wrote on Truth Social in a post in the early morning hours of May 14, local time, after he arrived in Riyadh.
"Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country."
Contributing: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Planes on the brain: Trump inks plane deals, covets jets in Qatar