Trumps $ 96b Qatar jet deal signals diplomatic shift

President Donald Trump announced a 96 -billion dollar contract between Qatar Airways and Boeing on Wednesday, a lifeline for the impressed American aerospace giants and a powerful symbol of the diplomatic maneuver, which defines its presidency.

The agreement signed in Doha while Trumps Middle East Tour includes the purchase of 210 Boeing jets by the state-owned Qatar airline.

In Qatar, Trump said that the deal was for 160 aircraft and worth over 200 billion US dollars -although the White House later published a factual sheet, which said it was for up to 210 jets and worth 96 billion US dollars.

The deal marks a rare ray of hope for Boeing, whose assets were free. The manufacturer's orders last year fell 60% in the middle of a series of setbacks, including a catastrophic incident with an Alaska Airlines 737 Max and a massive machine operator strike, which lasted the production for almost three months. A fragile relaxation had started until the end of the year, but Trump's trade war threatened to undercut all profits because the tariffs could increase the costs for American jets abroad.

For Trump, the Doha signing was not just about promoting US production. It also underlined its personal fascination for the aviation one rich, in which his role as a businessman, president and self-proclaimed dealmaker overlap. The president has long referred to his own Boeing 757 as “Trump Force One” and is now considering an even larger symbol of his influence: a luxury jet offered by Qatar to serve as a temporary air force one.

“Why should our military and thus our taxpayers be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars if you can get it from a country free of charge that wants to reward us for a well -done job,” Trump wrote about the social truth. The President described the offer as a gesture of the goodwill from Qatar, but critics see it as another example of foreign influences that penetrate the American government.

Security experts have warned that the Qatarian aircraft would require extensive changes to meet the US military standards, including countermeasures against nuclear and missile threats.

Secret service officers have warned of the risks in the retrofitting of a jet abroad, a process in which the luxurious interior of the aircraft is aligned with tearing spy devices. NBC News reported that the process could cost over 1 billion US dollars and years.

The Democrats in the Congress have also raised the ghost of the emrubs clause of the constitution, which prohibits federal officials accepting gifts from foreign governments without the consent of the congress.

The Qatar bait is the youngest in a series of top-class aviation agreements, which were signed by Trump's Middle East during the four-day visit. Just a day earlier, the Souverign WEALTH Fund in Saudi -Arabia concluded an agreement of over 4.8 billion US dollars with Boeing, and the US Minister of Trade Howard Lutnick confirmed a 10 -billion dollar arrangement of a British airline, part of the broader advance of the government to increase American exports.