Trump reportedly is set to accept a jet from Qatar's ruling family for possible use as Air Force One
WASHINGTON — President Trump reportedly is set to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this week, and U.S. officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft, raising ethical questions.
ABC News reported that Trump will use the plane as a new version of Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office in January 2029, when ownership will be transferred to the foundation overseeing his yet-to-be-built presidential library.
The gift is expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar as part of a trip that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first extended foreign travel of his second term. The Qatari government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Administration officials, anticipating questions about the president accepting such a large gift from a foreign government, have prepared an analysis arguing that doing so would be legal, according to ABC. The Constitution's Emoluments Clause bars anyone holding government office from accepting any present, emolument, office or title from any 'King, Prince, or foreign State,' without congressional consent.
One expert on government ethics, Kathleen Clark of the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said the gift suggests that Trump is 'committed to exploiting the federal government's power, not on behalf of policy goals, but for amassing personal wealth.'
'This is outrageous,' Clark said. 'Trump believes he will get away with this.'
Air Force One is a modified Boeing 747. Two exist and the president flies on both, which are more than 30 years old. Boeing Inc. has the contract to produce updated versions, but delivery has been delayed while the company has lost billions of dollars on the project. Delivery has been pushed to 2027 for the first plane and in 2028 — Trump's final full year in office — for the second.
Trump intends to convert the Qatari aircraft into a plane he can fly on as president, with the Air Force planning to add secure communications and other classified elements to it. But it will still have more limited capabilities than the existing planes that were built to serve as Air Force One, as well as two other aircraft under construction, according to a former U.S. official.
The official was briefed about the plane and spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not yet been made public.
The existing planes used as Air Force One are heavily modified with survivability capabilities for the president for a range of contingencies, including radiation shielding and antimissile technology. They also include a variety of communications systems to allow the president to remain in contact with the military and issue orders from anywhere in the world.
The official told the Associated Press that it would be possible to quickly add some countermeasures and communications systems to the Qatari plane, but that it would be less capable than the existing Air Force One aircraft or long-delayed replacements.
Neither the Qatari plane nor the upcoming VC-25B aircraft will have the air-to-air refueling capabilities of the current VC-25A aircraft, which is the one the president currently flies on, the official said.
ABC said the new plane is similar to a 13-year-old Boeing aircraft Trump toured in February, while it was parked at Palm Beach International Airport and he was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club.
Trump faced lawsuits for violating the Emoluments Clause during his first term, but those were ended by the Supreme Court in 2021, which found the cases moot because the Republican had left office.
Clark said the reported Qatari gift is the 'logical, inevitable, unfortunate consequence of Congress and the Supreme Court refusing to enforce' the Emoluments Clause.
Trump's family business, the Trump Organization, which is now largely run by his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, has vast and growing interests in the Middle East. That includes a new deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, partnering with Qatari Diar, a real estate company backed by that country's sovereign wealth fund.
Qatar, which is ruled by the Al Thani family, is home to the state-owned airline Qatar Airways. The country has worked to nurture a close relationship with Trump after he apparently backed a boycott of Doha by four Arab nations in his first term. Trump later in his term applauded Qatar.
Administration officials have brushed off concerns about the president's policy interests blurring with his family's business profits. They argue that Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children and that a voluntary ethics agreement released by the Trump Organization in January bars the company from striking deals directly with foreign governments.
But that same agreement allows deals with private companies abroad. That is a departure from Trump's first term, when the organization released an ethics pact prohibiting either foreign government or foreign company deals.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked Friday if the president during his upcoming trip might meet with people tied to his family's business, said it was 'ridiculous' to suggest Trump 'is doing anything for his own benefit.'
Miller and Weissert write for the Associated Press. AP writers Christine Fernando in Chicago and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
12 minutes ago
- Newsweek
How Project 2025 Compares With Trump's Los Angeles Response
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump's response to protests in Los Angeles is in keeping with suggestions put forth in Project 2025, a political commentator has said. Allison Gill, who worked at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, said on Wajahat Ali's the Left Hook Substack that the president's military response was "spelled out in Project 2025," a conservative policy dossier. She did not specify how. Newsweek has contacted the Heritage Foundation and Gill for comment by email. The Context Protests against immigration enforcement began in Los Angeles on Friday and have continued, with some isolated incidents of violence and looting. In response, Trump announced the deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to restore order, without California Governor Gavin Newsom's consent. While the president has said the move was necessary to prevent the city from "burning to the ground" amid protests and riots, officials in California have accused Trump of exacerbating the situation in an "unprecedented power grab." A police officer firing a soft round near the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on June 8. A police officer firing a soft round near the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on June 8. AP Photo/Eric Thayer What To Know Gill, who served Trump a lawsuit in 2023 accusing him of conspiring to fire her from the Veterans Affairs Department during his first presidency, said sending in the Marines was "propaganda" because the protests were not severe enough to require them. Though she said Project 2025 predicted the president's response to the protests, she did not elaborate on how. Project 2025 is a 900-page document of policy proposals published by the Heritage Foundation think tank. It advocates limited government, border security and tough immigration laws among other conservative measures. The policy proposals have proved divisive, and the president's critics and supporters alike have debated their influence on him. While Project 2025 does not mention the Insurrection Act, a November 2023 report from The Washington Post, citing internal communications and a person involved in the conversations, said the Project 2025 group had drafted executive orders that would use the Insurrection Act to deploy the military domestically. Gill told Ali that she warned people of Trump's potential use of the military to curb protests before the presidential election. "We did everything that we could in leading up to the election in 2024 to tell everyone as loud as we can, they are planning to do this," she said, adding: "Saying he's going to call this an invasion. He's going to call this an insurrection. And he's going to use that to invoke emergency powers so that he can unleash the military on United States citizens and perhaps even suspend habeas corpus so that he can detain his political enemies without due process." "This is scary," Gill, who hosts the Mueller, She Wrote podcast, continued. "This is full-on fascism, full-on authoritarianism." "This is a test case for authoritarianism," Ali added. Before the 2024 presidential election, Democrats accused Trump of planning to implement Project 2025 if he won. While Trump initially called parts of the plan "ridiculous and abysmal," he told Time after his electoral victory that he disagreed with parts of it, but not all of it. He has since appointed a number of people linked to Project 2025 to White House positions. In an October interview with Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, Trump indicated that he would use the National Guard or the military if there were disruptions from "radical left lunatics" on Election Day. What Does Project 2025 Say? Project 2025 advocates for improved defense infrastructure and for the Department of Homeland Security to "thoroughly enforce immigration laws." The document added that DHS should "provide states and localities with a limited federal emergency response and preparedness." However, it did not say whether this would occur in the context of protests. What Trump's Advisers Have Said Trump's advisers have previously spoken about the use of National Guard troops in other contexts. According to a February 2024 report in The Atlantic, Stephen Miller, now the White House deputy chief of staff, said that Trump—if returned to office—would take National Guard troops from sympathetic Republican-controlled states and use them in Democratic-run states whose governors refused to cooperate with their mass deportation policy. What People Are Saying President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday: "If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!" Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday: "We will always protect the constitutional right for Angelenos to peacefully protest. However, violence, destruction and vandalism will not be tolerated in our city and those responsible will be held fully accountable." What Happens Next The anti-ICE protests, which have spread to other cities, are likely to continue. Newsom has called on the Trump administration to remove federal troops from Los Angeles.
CNBC
18 minutes ago
- CNBC
U.S. uncertainty is handing Europe a huge opportunity
Europe is being urged to capitalize on the volatility of the Trump administration, as shifts in capital and private market flows suggest U.S. exceptionalism is waning and losing out to a resurgent Europe. The numbers tell part of the story, with Europe's Stoxx 600 up over 8% compared to a 5% jump for the S&P 500 since Nov. 1, 2024, just days ahead of the U.S. election. Bank of America said in a report dated June 5 that U.S. equities had seen outflows of $7.5 billion over the previous three weeks, while European stocks benefited from inflows of $2.6 billion over the same period. Earlier this year, meanwhile, data from Morningstar showed that investors withdrew 2.8 billion euros ($3.2 billion) from U.S. equity ETFs in the month to the middle of March, while shifting 14.6 billion euros into European ETFs. Goldman Sachs International Co-CEO Anthony Gutman told CNBC that the convergence in U.S. and European growth rates came about quickly this year and was a big factor prompting investors to shift money toward Europe. "In January, sentiment felt very strong in the U.S., it felt somewhat more muted in Europe. You roll the clock forward and now the picture has changed fairly dramatically, that's to the benefit of Europe in many cases. Europe is getting more capital inflows and there is more optimism in Europe," Gutman told CNBC's Annette Weisbach Wednesday on the sidelines of the Goldman Sachs European Financials Conference in Berlin. Meanwhile, in private markets, talk of the breakdown of U.S. exceptionalism dominated the Super Return forum in Berlin last week. Carlyle Group's Managing Director Mark Jenkins told CNBC that, "in Europe, we've seen a lot of great opportunity and think we can pick up greater returns here relative to the risk you're taking in the U.S." This sentiment was echoed by private equity giant Permira, which holds private equity funds and credit vehicles representing around 60 billion euros worth of capital under management. "If you look at Europe at the moment, firstly, capital is cheaper, if you look at the trend of where euro rates are going versus dollar rates are going, you can fund and finance things cheaper here. Secondly, valuations are cheaper, you can buy great companies for less," Permira Executive Chairman Kurt Björklund told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday. "Thirdly the innovation cycle is growing exponentially in Europe … there is an enormous number of highly innovative companies that are growing in a disruptive and global way," he added. All eyes are now on the potential for an EU-U.S. trade deal — which is proving trickier to pin down than with some other countries, including the U.K. Referencing the complexity of the behemoth that is the European Union, Siemens Energy Chairman Joe Kaeser told CNBC that the EU is "politically not ready to strike these types of deals." The White House hinted on Wednesday that a July 9 deadline for a deal may be movable, however, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying: "It is highly likely that for those countries that are negotiating — or trading blocs, in the case of the EU — who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good faith negotiation." French President Emmanuel Macron also struck an optimistic tone, telling CNBC's Karen Tso on Wednesday: "I'm sure that we will find, at the end of the day, a good solution." Unicredit CEO Andrea Orcel stressed that the opportunity for Europe's continued revival lies in its own hands, however. He explained that the 27-member European Union could galvanize amid the fracturing of Europe's relationship with the U.S., but warned that investors can also be fickle. The expectation is that "there will be convergence, there will be a banking union, there will be a capital markets union. There will be a lot of spend on infrastructure, on defense... That's exciting for the market, therefore money flowing in," Orcel told CNBC Wednesday. "But if, little by little, investors realize that this is lip service, but it doesn't really happen. Money will flow back in a nanosecond, and you will see [that] very quickly." Europe is faced with a "phenomenal opportunity," he added. "We have every reason to be ... on par with the U.S., but it's our fault if we don't do it."
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China affirms trade deal with US, says it always keeps its word
BEIJING (Reuters) -China on Thursday affirmed a trade deal announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, saying both sides needed to abide by the consensus and adding China always kept its word. The deal, reached after Trump and China's President Xi Jinping spoke on the telephone last week, brings a delicate truce in a trade war between the world's two largest economies. "China has always kept its word and delivered results," Lin Jian, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a regular news conference. "Now that a consensus has been reached, both sides should abide by it." The Trump-Xi telephone call broke a standoff that had flared just weeks after a preliminary deal was reached in Geneva. The call was quickly followed by more talks in London that Washington said had put "meat on the bones" of the Geneva agreement to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs. The Geneva deal had faltered over China's continued curbs on minerals exports, prompting the Trump administration to respond with export controls preventing shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made planes and other goods to China. Trump on Wednesday said he was very happy with the trade deal. "Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me," Trump said on Truth Social. "Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China. Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!). We are getting a total of 55% tariffs, China is getting 10%." Still, specifics of the latest deal and details on how it will be implemented remain unclear. A White House official said the 55% represents the sum of a baseline 10% "reciprocal" tariff Trump has imposed on goods imported from nearly all U.S. trading partners, 20% on all Chinese imports associated with his accusation that China had not done enough to stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., and pre-existing 25% levies on imports from China put in place during Trump's first presidential term. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
