Trump really wants a new presidential jet. Even if it’s a $400-mn ‘gift’ from Qatar

medium121165556Not accepting a lavish $400-mn jet from the Qatar royal family would be “stupid”, US president Donald Trump says. Because “we give free things out, we’ll take one too.” It is the kind of quid-pro-quo-equal-exchange bargain that Trump has always anchored his pride in. And the optics don’t seem to rattle him. But this “unusual” gift, a jumbo jet so opulent that it’s called a “flying palace”, has bothered American lawmakers and ethics experts for far more than the optics. It might be a constitutional violation — unless Congress gives consent — and draw even more attention to Trump’s financial and political ties to Qatar. medium121158235How big is this ‘gift’?The jumbo jet in question is a Boeing 747-8 on standby for Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, Qatar’s former prime minister and one of its wealthiest royals, known informally as HBJ. It’s from a line of business jets that Boeing makes specifically aimed at heads of states and the ultra-wealthy.The aircraft is massive — 250-foot long, with a wingspan of 224-foot. That’s part of the appeal. Axios cited a source as saying that the configurations worked for Trump, who toured the aircraft in February after it flew into Florida. “It’s a little bit bigger,” the source said. It’s not too old either. It’s about 13 years old (which is mid-life, by industry classification) and has been very lightly used (less than 1,100 hours in eight years, an average 130 hours in a year). The Qatari government had put it up for sale at some point in 2020 — and speculation was that it was because of high maintenance costs, low utilisation and a broader shift away from large four-engine aircraft like this one during the pandemic. Because of that, we know from a document put up then that the jet has 89 passenger seats and 14 cabin crew seats (far fewer than the 400-odd seats that a jet of this size can accommodate as a regular airplane). There’s a master bedroom, a guest bedroom, a private office, a private lounge, and a main lounge. The interiors are the work of Cabinet Alberto Pinto, the French design house which also counts the royal families of Saudi Arabia and Morocco, former French president Jacques Chirac, and American industrialist David Koch on its list of clients. Inside, Bloomberg reported, the furnishings are in a palette of cream and tan, and “there are custom-made Tai Ping rugs, sycamore and wacapou wood fixtures, and artwork by Alexander Calder.” (Tai Ping is a 70-year-old Hong Kong-based luxury carpet maker whose handcrafted rugs have been seen in the White House, the Élysée Palace, and royal residences in Europe and Asia. Sycamore is prized for its distinctive grain patterns, wacapou for its exceptional durability. And Alexander Calder’s art is known for its use of motion and balance in sculpture, fetching anything from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions at auctions.)The aircraft record shows that it took more than two years to refurbish the cabin. The sale clearly didn’t happen — flight tracker records show it was “withdrawn from use” towards the end of 2023. medium121158489Why does Trump want a new Air Force One?Trump has long been upset about the state of Air Force One but they — Air Force One is a set of two identical aircraft — were going to be upgraded anyway. Those aircraft — Boeing 747-200Bs, designated as VC-25A — have been in use since the 1990s and cost about $178,000 an hour to operate. Boeing won the contract to build new ones in 2015, with delivery due in 2024. Trump’s first term as the president began the following year, he wanted to cancel the order because the costs were too high, and then he struck a deal with Boeing and acquired two 747-8 aircraft that were meant for a Russian buyer but never delivered. He said that saved the US government $1.4bn. But the bargain turned out to be a hard one for Boeing. The $4-bn fixed-price contract that Boeing had agreed to turned out to be a challenge — it was already dealing with the fallout of the fatal crashes of its planes when the pandemic upended supply chains and pushed up labour costs. Its losses on the contract piled up to more than $2bn while the promised delivery date was pushed — from 2024 to 2027 or 2028, then 2029 and, it was reported for a while, maybe even 2035 before snapping back to 2027 after Trump’s more-than-a-nudge.“When I came back, I said, ‘By the way, what’s going on with the Boeings that are coming in?’ ‘Well, sir, they’re way behind’,” Trump told the press on Monday. “Another mess that I inherited from Biden … We have [a] 40-year-old aircraft. The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippytop is astronomical. You wouldn’t even believe it.”But why does Trump want one from Qatar?Because, Trump says, they offered. “They know about it because they buy Boeings, they buy a lot of Boeings,” he told reporters at the press briefing. “They said we would like to do something.” (Trump does, too — he has his own fleet of private jets. He had said earlier that Air Force One was a “step down” from his Boeing 757, which he used to call “Trump Force One” during his first term.)And because they look really cool. “You look at some of the Arab countries, and the planes they have parked alongside the United States of America plane, it’s like from a different planet,” he had added.Axios cited sources to say that the understanding came about because of Trump’s old friend and the US special presidential envoy to West Asia, Steve Witkoff. “The emir of Qatar is a buddy of Steve Witkoff,” Axios reported, “That’s how they happened to know [the US was] looking for a plane.”There is precedent, but it’s not always greatQatar’s emir (the head of state) had gifted a similar luxury jet to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2018, and it had led to similar criticism within Türkiye. It was even newer, delivered only in 2015, and refitted to carry 76 passengers — and it was also listed for sale before being sent off as a gift. Years before that, in 2007, Qatar had gifted an aircraft from its royal fleet to Pakistan. It was used by then president of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf and then prime minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz. (A decade later, Pakistan would also send across a diplomatic gift — a horse, for the emir of Qatar.)But this sort of gift diplomacy isn’t restricted to private jets. Azerbaijan has been accused of using “caviar diplomacy” — using gifts of silk carpets, gold and silver items, drinks, vacations and caviar — to influence European lawmakers. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had given then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice a diamond ring, and a locket with his photograph. Russian president Vladimir Putin has gifted 24 horses and a limousine, among other things, to North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un. It’s not the most inspiring list. And it is because of the murkiness of the expectations these “gifts” are tied to that most democracies do not allow public officials to accept high-value gifts. In Trump’s case, his own MAGA supporters have started questioning the ethics of the proposed arrangement — for slightly different reasons than constitutional mandates. Qatar’s relationship with Hamas is what is angering many of them. The timing is controversial, too. Qatar recently signed a $5.5bn deal to develop its first Trump-branded real estate project, with a golf course and luxury villas. Trump’s family-run Trump Organization had said in its first term that it wouldn’t work on overseas business ventures. But it has not held back on them this time, during his second term, and has announced many projects in the Gulf region. medium121158353Trump doesn’t seem to believe it’s a breachBesides posting that “the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction,” he has said that it would be a “contribution to [the US} defence department.”Qatar, meanwhile, told Politico, “The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made.” So, “temporary”.But the jet has been parked at the San Antonio Airport in Texas since April 3, flight tracker records show. Also, Wall Street Journal reported that defence contractor L3Harris has been commissioned to redo the aircraft. Retrofitting it is no quick task — a retired Secret Service agent told The Washington Post that “you’d pretty much have to take that plane down to the skeleton and put it back together” — but it looks like it’s on or at least being planned.None of Trump’s statements have been uncertain though. When he was asked on Monday about what would happen to the jet after he left office, he said he wouldn’t use it and “it would go directly to the [presidential] library”. Some kind of monument to his time in office.