By The Herald Editorial Board
President Trump’s eagerness to accept the gift of a Boeing 747-8 — valued at $400 million — from the Qatari royal family for use as a new Air Force One might seem reasonable at first glance.
“I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane,’ but I thought it was a great gesture.” Trump said prior to this week’s trip to Arab states.
The Qatari jet, just 10 years old, and with less than 1,000 flying hours, is more fuel-efficient, has a longer range and a more modern flight deck than the two specially modified Boeing 747-200s now in service that first began flying in 1990.
And — also to Trump’s liking — it’s certainly more lavish than the current aircraft or their planned replacements. The Qatari 747, dubbed “a flying palace,” features an interior designed by a Parisian firm — rather than the current planes’ Nancy Reagan-designed Southwest theme — a master bedroom and guest bedroom in the plane’s second deck, both with en suite bathrooms and showers and custom-made rugs, sycamore wood fixtures and even artwork by Alexander Calder.
But just as there is no free lunch aboard Air Force One, there is no free Air Force One.
Accepting the gift would make no sense financially for the nation and even less sense in terms of the obligations it would impose on the president and the nation.
At least $1 billion of taxpayer funding would likely have to be spent to refit the Qatari jet for duty as Air Force One, and that work would take time.
Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consultant, told NPR’s “Morning Edition” on Wednesday that it was a “complete fantasy” to believe the Qatari 747 could be quickly brought up to design standards expected for Air Force One aircraft, estimating it normally has taken four to five years to convert “a basic green plane” off Boeing’s Everett factory floor.
Two 747-8 aircraft now are undergoing conversion work in a $3.9 billion contract with Boeing that was signed in 2018, with the aerospace giant eating already considerable cost-overruns. The earliest those planes, both built in 2013, are expected to be completed is 2027, Aboulafia said, if some security requirements are relaxed as the Trump administration had earlier sought.
The Qatari plane “doesn’t save any time relative to getting the planned Air Force One (planes) up and running,” the longtime Boeing observer said. “It also offers exactly nothing over the Air Force One that’s in service,” two Boeing 747-200s that began service in the 1990s under President George H.W. Bush.
“In terms of utility while he’s in office, there’s no virtue to it whatsoever,” he said.
Aboulafia and others have said the Qatari jet would have to be gutted “down to its constituent elements” to look for surveillance devices and evaluate any potential decoys. And any aircraft used as the “Flying Oval Office” must be outfitted with extensive communication, defensive and other security equipment. Exclusive to the jets that fly as Air Force One when the president is aboard are anti-missile defense systems, hardening and radiation shielding against a nuclear strike, and a medical suite with operating room.
A former U.S. official interviewed by the Associated Press said it might be possible to quickly add communications and some defensive countermeasures to the Qatari plane, but it would remain less capable than the newer 747-8s or even the existing planes.
“In terms of the plane that is given to him to survive the worst kinds of eventualities and to defend the country in the event of a crisis; no, it is not just a plain old jet liner donated by somebody,” Aboulafia said. “It is something that takes a massive level of systems integration and a high level of missionization.”
But beyond those practical considerations, accepting the Qatari jet — even with its Boeing pedigree — violates both the Constitution and common sense.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously worked for Qatar as a lobbyist, has signed off on the White House’s acceptance of the gift, calling it “legally permissible.”
A look at the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, however, clearly bars anyone holding government office from accepting presents, emoluments, offices or titles from any “King, Prince of foreign State,” without congressional consent; the purpose being to prevent officials and diplomats from being bribed, corrupted or compromised by foreign governments.
Trump already is using his cryptocurrency memecoin, $TRUMP, as an “investment” available to all comers and their political and personal interests that will enrich the Trump family just through transaction fees, if not through the usual Ponzi scheme mechanics.
If Trump and Bondi have no concern in accepting a $400 million bribe — even if its strings are not yet apparent — then Congress must take that responsibility to say no, thank you, to Qatar.
If accepted and refitted, the Qatari jet — at considerable cost to taxpayers — will serve the president only during the final year or so of his term. The plane would then be handed over to Trump for his personal use, most likely to sit as an opulent exhibit at the Trump presidential library, fittingly either as a Trojan horse or a grift horse that we failed to look in the mouth.
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