Trump’s Qatar Jet Deal Looks Like Corruption in Plain Sight.
In what increasingly appears to be a flagrant display of corruption, the White House is engaged in discussions with the royal family of Qatar to obtain a luxury jumbo jet for President Trump’s use—potentially as a temporary Air Force One.
Qatar has attempted to spin the move as less nefarious, claiming the aircraft wouldn’t be a gift, but rather a “temporary use” agreement under review. According to CBS News, the plane is expected to eventually be donated to Trump’s presidential library at the end of his term—an eyebrow-raising arrangement that would appear more at home in a kleptocracy than a democracy.
The discussions come just as Trump is set to visit Qatar—part of the first major foreign trip of his second term. Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s Media Attaché to the US, said, “The matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made.”
Meanwhile, CBS reports the jet won’t be ready for immediate use due to retrofitting and security clearance needs. But the mere prospect of this kind of transfer—of a multimillion-dollar aircraft between a foreign monarchy and a sitting US president—should be raising massive red flags.
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Critics are already sounding alarms, pointing out the legal and ethical quagmire this opens. A foreign government offering luxury assets to a president while he's in office, only to later contribute that asset to his personal legacy project? If that doesn’t meet the textbook definition of impropriety, it at the very least obliterates the spirit of anti-corruption norms.
On Sunday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to smooth things over, claiming, “Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump's Administration is committed to full transparency.” But critics aren't convinced, especially in light of the President’s own contradictory statement.
Trump took to his Truth Social platform to flat-out call the aircraft a “GIFT,” openly bragging, “So the fact 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, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane.”
The U.S. Air Force currently operates two highly customized Boeing 747-200B planes as Air Force One, both in use since the early 1990s. They include secure communications, a stateroom, office, and conference room. Trump’s administration had previously negotiated a deal with Boeing for new planes, but delays have led to frustration—and now, apparently, a shady workaround.
Boeing says the official replacement aircraft won’t be available until 2027 or 2028. Trump, never one to wait when shortcuts are available, said in February: “No, I'm not happy with Boeing. It takes them a long time to do, you know, Air Force One, we gave that contract out a long time ago. We may buy a plane or get a plane, or something.”
Trump has a cozy diplomatic history with Qatar. In 2019, his administration announced a major Qatari purchase of U.S. airplanes. The Gulf nation has also gifted aircraft to other allies, including a luxury plane handed to Turkey in 2018.
But gifting a "flying palace" to the U.S. president—who then turns around and uses it, possibly before it’s funneled into his library—is a whole new level of brazen.
It’s almost surreal how openly corrupt this entire situation is—and yet so few people are willing to call it out for what it is. A sitting president entertaining a luxury jet from a foreign monarchy? Planning to funnel it into his personal library project? And we’re just letting that happen? First, it was Trump’s meme coin grift, now it’s royal jets. This is not diplomacy; it’s self-dealing in plain sight. The normalization of this level of corruption is a symptom of a dangerously broken system—and the silence around it is as damning as the act itself. Where is the outrage?
