Donald Trump said Monday that he would be “stupid” to reject the plane in the process of being offered in the United States by Qatar.
“I think it is a beautiful gesture of Qatar. I am very grateful. I am not the guy who rejects such an offer. He could be a stupid person and say” no, we do not want us to give us a very expensive plane, “said the US president.
White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt confirmed early on Monday that Qatar’s royal family was going to offer a Boeing 747-8 jumbo portrayed by media as a “palace in heaven.”
“The legal details of this offer are still being studied,” he told Fox News.
It could be the most expensive good ever offered to the United States government, while Donald Trump goes to the Middle East, with a scenario in Qatar, from Tuesday to Friday.
The spokesman also assured that this Gulf country was not looking for a preferential treatment in exchange, because “they know President Trump and know that he is only working with the interests of Americans in mind.”
This gift raises the question of possible conflicts of interest, especially because the US Constitution prohibits the depositors of the public authority from accepting gifts “by a king, a prince or a foreign state.”
When Qatar offered a Boeing to Erdogan
However, there could be a legal vacuum, especially if it is offered as a donation to the Pentagon.
This is not the first time that Qatar’s emir has been very generous with a head of state. In 2018, he was the Turkish president Rece Tayyip Erdogan who was offered a Boeing 747-8 I bought again in 2012 for the emir of Qatar who had done it at a great cost for his own needs.
A gift, however, considered “humiliating” by the opposition to Ankara. “The State of the Republic of Türkiye should not be reduced to accepting a plane offered by a sheikh,” said the leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kiliçardagllu.
The American Republican leader intends to replace the current two Boeing 747-200B, who entered the service in 1990 under the father of President George Bush. Since his return to power, Donald Trump has been unleashed several times against the significant maintenance costs of these devices.
At the beginning of the year, Donald Trump said that “alternatives” were studied on the future presidential plane, expressing his dissatisfaction with the delays taken by the Boeing aircraft manufacturer.
The American aerospace giant signed a contract in 2018 to provide two 747-8 aircraft before the end of 2024 for $ 3.9 billion, equipped to transport the US President.
But modifications to the project, notably claimed by Donald Trump during his first term, the bankruptcy of a subcontractor, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and the supply problems they followed, rejected the calendar.
Source: BFM TV
