Qatar welcomes President Donald Trump with luxury
President Donald Trump touched the warm welcome of fighter jets, cybertracks and dancers in Doha, Qatar.
Ahead of this week’s trip to Qatar and the Middle East, President Donald Trump chased the planned gift of Qatar’s Boeing 747 jets, saying he was “silly” not accepting “free, extremely expensive planes.”
Aboard Air Force 1, Trump lamented Fox News host Sean Hannity, a comparative old age of a US government plane, and did not appear next to the “brand new Boeing 747” in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“You see ours next to it. It’s like a completely different plane,” Trump said.
The White House announced on May 14 that Qatar Airways would purchase more than 200 new jets from Boeing.
As Trump doubles its acceptance of luxury planes from Qatar despite ethical concerns, Virginia-based Boeing has announced a plane contract with foreign airlines for less than half the initially announced price.
When he sat down with Qatar Emil Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and signed the economic and defense agreement, President Trump said it was “the Jets’ biggest order in Boeing’s history,” and said it was “it’s pretty good.”
“It’s over $20 billion, but it’s $160 for the Jets. That’s great,” Trump said. In an official announcement later that day, the White House issued a much lower revised figure – $96 billion – for up to 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777x aircraft.
Qatar Airways said in a news release that the deal is the largest aircraft order in its history.
Qatar Airlines’ contract was not the first time during a Boeing-cashed trip to the Middle East – Avilleaze, an aircraft leasing company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, ordered as many as 30 Boeing Jets.
In contrast, the plane that Qatar offered to Trump has raised concerns from both Democrats and Republicans, and there is no price tag as it violates the constitution’s emolations clause.
“The American people should let their disgust know. There is no room for this kind of awful disregard for the above-mentioned empty constitution,” Norman Eisen, Virginia Kanter, Richard W. Painter – the former White House legal advice, all written in a New York Times opinion piece.
Democrat lawmakers were also furious. “This cannot bear it. Our foreign policy is not a mechanism to enrich Donald Trump and his family,” Senator Docon Chris Murray said in a video statement.
Trump retorted that the plane was not personally for him, but rather a “free gift” to the Department of Defense.
“Why should our army, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars when they can freely get it from the country they want to reward us for a sufficient job,” he wrote about the truth social in an early morning post on May 14th after his arrival in Riyadh.
“Only fools will not accept this gift on behalf of our nation.”
Contribution: Reuters
