A Boeing 747 sits on the tarmac of Palm Seashore Worldwide Airport after President Donald Trump toured the plane, Feb. 15, 2025.
Roberto Schmidt | Afp | Getty Pictures
The Trump administration has formally accepted a Boeing 747 jet that was gifted to the U.S. by the federal government of Qatar, the Pentagon stated Wednesday.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth accepted the luxurious aircraft “in accordance with all federal guidelines and rules,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated in an announcement to CNBC.
The Division of Protection will work to make sure that the jet, which President Donald Trump has stated he desires to make use of as the brand new Air Power One, fulfills “correct safety measures and functional-mission necessities,” Parnell stated.
The announcement cements the U.S. authorities’s intention to take the aircraft, regardless of consultants’ warnings and Democrats’ accusations of bribery.
Within the Oval Workplace on Wednesday, Trump known as the present “an excellent factor” and stated Qatar handed over the aircraft “so they may assist us out.”
The remarks got here in between an at-times tense debate with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about Trump’s debunked claims of a white “genocide” towards White Afrikaners.
“I’m sorry I haven’t got a aircraft to present you,” Ramaphosa stated at one level.
Boeing has spent years working to transform two 747s into the subsequent Air Power Ones in a deal struck throughout Trump’s first time period as president. However the undertaking is years not on time, and the planes might not be prepared earlier than the top of Trump’s second time period.
Trump administration officers earlier this 12 months stated the president was pissed off with that tempo and contemplating alternate options. “Boeing’s a bit late, sadly,” Trump stated Wednesday.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told analysts on his firm’s newest quarterly earnings call final month that its Air Power One program is being revised “to permit for an earlier first supply whereas sustaining our concentrate on security and high quality.”
It’s miles from clear if the 13-year-old Qatari jet, which has been valued at $400 million, may actually provide a fast repair.
Consultants have stated that changing that jet into an Air Power One may cost taxpayers over $1 billion and take years to finish.
Qatar’s present has additionally raised swells of anger from Democrats and different critics, a few of whom have condemned the alternate as successfully a bribe of a U.S. president.
“This unprecedented motion is a stain on the workplace of the presidency and can’t go unanswered,” Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stated in an announcement Wednesday.
Schumer — who has launched a invoice that may bar any international plane from getting used as Air Power One — vowed to proceed holding up Trump’s political nominees to the Division of Justice till Individuals “get transparency on this shady deal.”
Even some Republicans have raised issues concerning the potential nationwide safety dangers and different points surrounding the present.
“The transaction strikes me as being rife with political espionage, moral and constitutional issues,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, stated Thursday.
However Trump has repeatedly defended accepting the aircraft, saying it will be “silly” to not settle for a free jet and insisting that it’s going to the U.S. authorities, “not to me.”
— CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.
