U.S.
Formally Accepts Luxury Jet From Qatar for Trump
The Air
Force has been asked to figure out a way to upgrade it so it can be put into
use as a new Air Force One for the president.
Eric Lipton Eric Schmitt
By Eric
Lipton and Eric Schmitt
Reporting
from Washington
May 21, 2025
The United
States has accepted a 747 jetliner as a gift from the government of Qatar, and
the Air Force has been asked to figure out a way to rapidly upgrade it so it
can be put into use as a new Air Force One for President Trump, a Defense
Department spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
“The
secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with
all federal rules and regulations,” the chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell,
said in a statement. “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper
security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an
aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”
The plane,
which industry executives estimated is worth about $200 million, will require
extensive work before it can be considered secure enough to carry Mr. Trump,
Pentagon officials have acknowledged in recent days.
“Any
civilian aircraft will take significant modifications to do so,” Troy Meink,
the Air Force secretary, said on Tuesday during Senate testimony. “Based on the
secretary’s direction, we are postured and we’re off looking at that right now,
what it’s going to take for that particular aircraft.”
Mr. Trump
also confirmed the gift on Wednesday.
“They’re
giving the United States Air Force a jet, and it’s a great thing,” he said at
the White House.
The plan has
drawn concern from members of Congress, who worry that Mr. Trump will pressure
the Air Force to do the work so fast that sufficient security measures are not
built into the plane, such as missile defense systems or even systems to
protect the plane from the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear blast.
“If
President Trump insists on converting this plane to a hardened Air Force One
before 2029, I worry about the pressures you may be under to cut corners on
operational security,” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, said as
Mr. Meink was testifying.
The Pentagon
has not given an estimate of when the work on the Qatari plane might be done,
even though Mr. Trump and the White House have made clear the president wants
it soon, perhaps even by the end of the year.
“We will
make sure that we do what’s necessary to ensure security of the aircraft,” Mr.
Meink said at the Senate hearing. “I will be quite clear and discuss that with
the secretary up to the president if necessary if we feel there’s any threats
that we are unable to address.”
The gift
also has drawn questions from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who
worry that Qatar may be trying to improperly influence Mr. Trump, or that the
plane itself might have listening devices.
Qatar’s
prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, publicly
said on Monday for the first time that his government had approved turning over
the plane as a gift, rejecting the idea of it being an attempt to influence the
president.
Sheikh
Mohammed said he did not know why people thought of the gift as a bribe or
“something that Qatar wants to buy and influence with this administration. I
don’t see any, honestly, a valid reason for that.”
He added:
“We are a country that would like to have strong partnership and strong
friendship, and anything that we provide to any country, it’s provided out of
respect for this partnership and it’s a two-way relationship. It’s mutually
beneficial for Qatar and for the United States.”
The new
plane will be the third being retrofitted for use as Air Force One, replacing
two planes that have been in use for 35 years and have had maintenance
problems.
But
maintaining the staff and equipment for three planes is extraordinarily
expensive, an estimated $135 million a year for each plane, according to the
Pentagon. And it could cost $1 billion or more to retrofit the Qatari plane to
get it ready for use as Air Force One, a process that former Air Force
officials said could take longer than finishing the job Boeing is already doing
to deliver the replacements for the current two planes.
The first of
the Boeing planes is scheduled to be delivered in 2027, Air Force officials
recently said.
It remains
unclear where the money will come from to retrofit the Qatari plane or to
maintain and operate it, once it is completed. Congress typically reviews and
approves spending on any new major Pentagon programs. But Mr. Trump has already
shown a willingness to spend federal dollars as his administration wants, often
without consulting Congress.
The Senate
majority leader, John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said this month that
Congress would be asking questions about any possible use of the Qatari plane
as Air Force One.
“If and when
it’s no longer a hypothetical, I can assure you there will be plenty of
scrutiny of whatever that arrangement might look like,” Mr. Thune said.
Senator
Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, tried and failed on
Wednesday to pass a bill in the Senate that would ban the use of a foreign jet
as Air Force One. “This is about ensuring our national security, and about not
wasting taxpayer dollars on an utterly senseless deal,” Mr. Schumer said,
calling the deal “the largest foreign bribe in modern history.”
The measure,
which stood no chance of passing by unanimous consent in a chamber controlled
by Republicans, marked a clear rebuke of the Defense Department’s move to
accept the plane from the Qatari government. Senator Roger Marshall, Republican
of Kansas, blocked the bill.
The Qatari
plane had its first flight in 2012, and then it was renovated with a luxury
interior for members of the royal family in Qatar. But the government there has
been trying to sell the plane for about five years.
One airline
broker told The New York Times that he had a hard time finding a buyer, as 747
jets, which are no longer being manufactured, are expensive to operate. Even
heads of state are increasingly using two-engine jet planes, unlike the 747,
which has four engines, the broker said.
Marc J.
Foulkrod, the chief executive officer of Avjet Global Sales, which tried to
help Qatar sell the plane, said the United States would be better off working
with Boeing to accelerate its work on the $3.9 billion contract to deliver the
two 747 jets it has already been working on for five years.
“I’ve done
completions on big airplanes, and there’s always ways to accelerate the
program,” Mr. Foulkrod said in an interview. “That’s a better dollar value than
trying to take an airplane from somebody else.”
The Qatari
plane, flight records show, has been in San Antonio since early last month at
an airplane maintenance facility. Trump administration officials have said they
are considering hiring L3Harris, a military contractor, to handle the retrofit,
but no formal contract has been disclosed publicly, at least so far.
In a
statement on Wednesday, the Air Force said it was preparing “to award a
contract to modify a Boeing 747 aircraft for executive airlift. Details related
to the contract are classified.”
Congress has
not yet taken any formal vote to accept the plane as a gift from Qatar. The
Constitution requires that Congress sign off on any large gift to the
president. Mr. Trump has said the gift is to the U.S. government, not to him as
president.
Mr. Trump’s
comments about the plane on Wednesday came during a meeting with President
Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa.
“I am sorry
I don’t have a plane to give you,” Mr. Ramaphosa told Mr. Trump.
Maya C.
Miller contributed reporting.
Eric Lipton
is a Times investigative reporter, who digs into a broad range of topics from
Pentagon spending to toxic chemicals.
Eric Schmitt
is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S.
military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
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