Washington (AP)-it is opened that President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 Jumbo Jet as a gift from Qatar’s ruling family during his trip to the Middle East next week and US officials can turn the aircraft into a potential presidential plane.
ABC News has announced that Trump will use the plane as a new version of Air Force One until shortly before leaving office in January 2029, when the property will be transferred to the Foundation that is still a presidential library.
The gift is expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar as part of a trip, which also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first expanded foreign trip of his second term. The Qatari government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night.
Administration officials, expecting questions about the president, accepting such a large gift from a foreign government, prepared an analysis that argued that this would be legal, according to ABC. The Constitution’s remuneration clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, prohibits anyone who holds the government’s position from accepting any current, developments, position or property by any “king, prince or foreign state” without congress consent.
Trump intends to turn Qatari aircraft into an airplane in which he can fly as a president, with the Air Force plans to add safe communications and other classified elements to him.
But it will still have more limited opportunities than existing aircraft that have been built to serve as Air Force One, as well as two other planes that are currently being built, according to a former US employee who has been informed about the aircraft and speaks on Sunday, provided for anonymity to discuss plans that have not yet been announced publicly.
Existing aircraft used as the Air Force One are highly modified with survival opportunities for the president for a number of unforeseen situations, including radiation shielding and antimistile technology. They also include various communication systems to allow the president to remain in contact with the military and to issue orders from anywhere in the world.
The employee told the Associated Press that it would be possible to quickly add some oppositions and communication systems to the Qatari aircraft, but it would be less capable of the existing Air Force Air Force or long-term replacements.
Neither the Katari aircraft nor the upcoming VC-25B aircraft will have the opportunities to load air-to-air on the current VC-25A aircraft, which is the one currently flying, the employee said.
Air Force One is a modified Boeing 747. Two exist and the president is flying to both who are more than 30 years old. Boeing Inc. There is a contract to create updated versions, but the delivery is delayed while the company has lost billions of dollars on the project.
Delivery was pushed for some time in 2027 for the first plane and in 2028 – the last full year of Trump in service – for the second.
ABC said the new aircraft is similar to the 13-year-old Boeing aircraft, which Trump traveled in February while parked at Palm Beach International Airport and spent the weekend at his Mar-Lago club.
Trump’s family business, Trump’s organization, which is largely run by his sons, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump, has huge and growing interests in the Middle East. This includes a new deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, a partnership with Catari Diar, a real estate company, supported by the sovereign fund of wealth of this country.
Qatar, which is managed by the Al Thani family, is home to the State Airlines Qatar Katar Respiratory Roads. The country also worked to have a close relationship with Trump after he apparently supported a boycott of Doha of four Arab nations in his first term. Later, Trump applauded Qatar in his term.
The administration’s employees have destroyed fears about the interests of the President’s policy, who blurred the profits of the family’s business. They note that Trump’s assets are in confidence, managed by his children and that a voluntary ethics agreement, published by the Trump organization in January, prohibits the company from dealing with foreign governments directly.
But the same agreement allows transactions with private companies abroad. This is a deviation from Trump’s first term when the organization released an ethical pact, banning both transactions with foreign and foreign companies.
White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt, when asked on Friday, whether the president can meet people related to his family’s business during his upcoming trip, said it was “ridiculous” to assume that Trump is doing everything in his favor.
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Associated Press writer John Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has contributed to this report.