Trump ‘plans to accept’ $400,000,000 luxury plane gift from Qatar royal family

Top left, the plane at Palm Beach airport and below, the interior (Pictures: Reuters/AFP/AMAC Aerospace)

Donald Trump is expected to accept one of the most generous foreign gifts ever offered to a US President – a $400 million jumbo jet.

Qatar’s royal family dangled the enormous ‘flying palace’ in front of the luxury-loving leader in Florida earlier this year, suggesting it could replace the aging Air Force One.

The aircraft would reportedly be donated to Trump’s presidential library after he completes his term in office, allowing him to make use of it in a personal capacity.

In a post on his Truth Social site, the president suggested the arrangement would be temporary and called Democrats ‘losers’ for criticising the move.

He wrote: ‘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.

‘Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!’

But the donation has led to criticism beyond just Democrats, with influencer and die-hard Trump fan Laura Loomer writing she ‘would take a bullet’ for the president but he ‘cannot accept’ the plane.

She accused the Qataris of funding ‘Iranian proxies’ who have ‘murdered US Service Members’, and said acceptance would be ‘such a stain on the admin’.

ABC News reported the US Attorney General Pam Bondi and top White House lawyer David Warrington had concluded the deal would be ‘legally permissible’ as long as it is handed to the presidential library before the end of the president’s term.

Trump previously toured the plane when it visited Florida’s West Palm Beach International Airport near his Mar-a-Lago property in February.

A conference room inside the new plane (Picture: AMAC Aerospace)

A new Boeing 747-8, of the type being offered, would cost around $400 million.

The US Government has been seeking a replacement for Air Force One – actually two planes, though the designation is only given to the one carrying the president at a particular time – for more than 15 years.

They have been in use since George HW Bush’s administration in the early nineties, and the interiors were designed by former first lady Nancy Reagan.

By contrast, the interior of the new plan was designed by renowned French firm Alberto Pinto Cabinet.

It features staterooms, dining rooms and conference rooms with plush carpets and leather couches.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: ‘Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws.’

She added: ‘President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency.’

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