Plan to accept luxury jet from Qatar draws criticism from allies and rivals
President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week – and American officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft.
The Qatari government said a final decision had not been made, AP reports.
However, Trump defended the idea – what would amount to a US President accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government – as a fiscally shrewd move for the country.
“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,” Trump posted on his social media site on Sunday night. “Anybody can do that!”
ABC News reported that Trump will use the aircraft as his presidential plane until shortly before he leaves office in January 2029, when ownership will be transferred to the foundation overseeing his yet-to-be-built presidential library.
The gift was expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar, according to ABC’s report, as part of a trip that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first extended foreign travel of his second term.
Laura Loomer, a far-right ally of Trump, said accepting Qatar’s plane would be a “stain” on the administration, adding that Qatar “fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members.”
The Democratic National Committee said the move was proof of Trump using the White House for personal financial gain, while Democratic lawmakers blasted the plan as “wildly illegal,” and “corruption in plain sight.”
Key events
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines.
We start with the news that China and the US have agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with reciprocal tariffs to be lowered by 115%.
Speaking to the media after talks in Geneva, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said both sides had shown “great respect” in the negotiations.
Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations this weekend was neither side wants a decoupling”.
The 90-day lowering of tariffs applies to the duties announced by Donald Trump on 2 April, which ultimately escalated to 125% on Chinese imports, with Beijing responding with equivalent measures.
China also imposed non-tariff measures, such as restricting the export of critical minerals that are essential to US manufacturing of hi-tech goods.
The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said China’s retaliation had been disproportionate and amounted to an effective embargo on trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
For the full story, see here:
In other news:
-
Hamas announced on Sunday that it will release the last living American hostage in Gaza, Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American soldier who was kidnapped on 7 October 2023. Trump confirmed the news in a social media post, writing that Alexander, 21, “is coming home to his family”, while thanking mediators Qatar and Egypt.
-
A group of 49 white South Africans departed their homeland on Sunday for the United States on a private charter plane having been offered refugee status by the Trump administration under a new program announced in February. They are the first Afrikaners – a white minority group in South Africa – to be relocated after Trump issued an executive order in February accusing South Africa’s Black-led government of racial discrimination against them.
-
Mass terminations and billions of dollars’ worth of cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have gutted key programs – from child support services to HIV treatment abroad – and created a “real danger” that disease outbreaks will be missed, according to former workers. Workers at the HHS, now led by Robert F Kennedy Jr, and in public health warned in interviews that chaotic, flawed and sweeping reductions would have broad, negative effects across the US and beyond.
-
The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of the Newark Liberty international airport for the “several weeks”, as the facility – one of the country’s busiest airports – struggles with radar outages, numerous flight delays and cancellations due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.
-
A group of Quakers were marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington DC to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. Organisers of the march say their protest seeks to show solidarity with migrants and other groups that are being targeted by Trump.
-
Trump said on Sunday he would sign an executive order to cut prescription prices to the level paid by other high-income countries, an amount he put at 30% to 80% less. The White House did not immediately offer more details on how the plan would work.
