Trump's Qatar Plane Gift Adds To Mountain Of Corruption And Conflicts Of Interest
A $400 million Qatari jet. 2 Saudi Trump Towers. A $2B UAE crypto deal. Trump is exploiting the presidency for personal gain—signaling to the world that US policy is up for sale to the highest bidder.
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President Trump is currently in the Middle East for a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. This is the first major foreign trip of his second term, and it’s a notable choice, not just because of the geopolitical challenges in the region.
The Trump family has deepening personal business ties with every country the president is visiting this week. The deals are worth billions, and all would profoundly enrich the Trump family, adding to a mountain of corruption and conflicts of interest scandals already plaguing the Trump Administration.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) called the trip a “public corruption tour.” Rightfully so.
President Trump’s crypto ventures alone have already created an unprecedented opportunity for foreign-influence peddling and pay-to-play access to the presidency. Now, with the intended acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar and expanding business deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Trump is indicating to the world that US policy is up for sale to the highest bidder.
Before we get into the details of the flagrantly unconstitutional Qatari plane gift, let’s talk about the sheer scope of Trump’s Middle East business interests.
In Saudi Arabia, Trump has two new Trump Towers in development, one in Riyadh and a $532 million Trump Tower in Jeddah. In the United Arab Emirates, the Trump family has a new $1 billion Trump International Hotel & Tower being developed in Dubai. The UAE tower is being built by the same Saudi-backed development firm, Dar Global.
Another UAE deal comes in the form of an Abu Dhabi-backed fund that will use $2 billion of World Liberty Financial’s new stablecoin, USD1, to finance an investment in Binance. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are tied to stable assets, like the dollar.
World Liberty Financial, which was launched just before the 2024 election and is 60% owned by the Trump family, has taken in at least $550 million in sales of its crypto token. The Trump family is entitled to 75% of that revenue. The sale of Trump’s memecoin $TRUMP, has also generated over $100 million in transaction fees for Trump’s family and their business partners as they advertise a presidential dinner to the top 220 investors.
I wrote about Trump’s crypto ventures in more detail in my article last week, detailing how Trump is selling access to the presidency, taking actions that benefit his crypto investors, and pushing policies that enrich his family. I also discussed my article on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle.
Trump’s crypto ventures are creating an environment where foreign nationals, business leaders, and anyone with means can directly pay for influence over Trump’s moves. But still, foreign actors are seeking to influence Trump in even more straightforward ways.
In Qatar, Trump has a $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club & Villas project in the works. But Qatar has something else up its sleeve.
In perhaps the most brazenly corrupt attempt to influence President Trump yet, the Qatari royal family is gifting Trump a $400 million super luxury Boeing 747 jet that will be converted for use as Air Force One and will later be transferred to Trump’s presidential library. Trump has confirmed his plan to accept the gift in a Truth Social post, declaring that it’s a “very public and transparent transaction” and calling Democrats who are criticizing him “World Class Losers!!!”
This is the same plane that Trump previously toured at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.
There are two key concerns with this. The obvious possibility of bribery is a top concern, with the Qatari government directly seeking to curry favor with Trump. Secondly, a plane from Qatar becoming Air Force One poses significant national security risks.
As I wrote on Bluesky when I first saw the news, the foreign emoluments clause was written to prevent exactly this, prohibiting gifts and payments from foreign state actors. This is blatantly unconstitutional.
The Trump Administration’s plan is for the Defense Department to receive the gift, and then the plane will be transferred to Trump’s presidential library after he leaves office. The Trump Administration has tried to spin this as not a direct gift to President Trump in spite of all observable evidence.
ABC News, which was the first to report the gift, cited the Justice Department as declaring the gift “legally permissible.”
Sources told ABC News that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump's top White House lawyer David Warrington concluded it would be "legally permissible" for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump's presidential library before the end of his term, according to sources familiar with their determination.
It’s important to note that Attorney General Pam Bondi was once a lobbyist for the Qatari government, with the firm she worked for taking in $115,000 a month in fees. So the top law enforcement officer in the country is making decisions on the legality of the President receiving a gift from a country she literally worked for.
The conflicts of interest are glaring.
On both the constitutional and national security concerns, that’s not just my analysis. Multiple Republican Senators concur.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) called for Trump to reject the gift and cited the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution: "I do think the jet probably sends the wrong signal, and I don't like the look or appearance of it, so I would hope he would reject it. The Constitution specifically says you can't take gifts from foreign leaders."
Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), a diehard MAGA ally, said, “I’m not flying on a Qatari plane. They support Hamas... I don’t know how you make it safe. I don’t want the president of the United States flying on an unsafe plane.”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), another staunch ally of Trump, said, "I also think the plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems ... I certainly have concerns."
"The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” Those aren’t my words. That’s how President Trump himself spoke of Qatar in 2017. Trump accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar certainly flies in the face of the Trump Administration’s claims they’re targeting supporters of Hamas, a reasoning they’ve used to revoke student visas of people who are simply advocating for peace in Gaza.
Using a plane from Qatar as Air Force One would pose numerous issues, especially given the complex technological revamps that would be required. According to NBC News, it would take years and over $1 billion to convert this plane into Air Force One:
“You’re taking a 747, disassembling it, reassembling it, and then jacking it up to a very high level,” said Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, a consulting firm.
On top of that, there would need to be work to make sure there is no surveillance installed in the aircraft. National security experts have real concerns. From ABC News:
Many of the security features on the plane remain classified. It has anti-missile defenses or countermeasure systems to protect against surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, and the communication devices can also withstand the pulse of a nuclear blast. It is also outfitted with sophisticated communications capability to allow the president to securely run the country from the plane and protect him from cyberattacks.
John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former acting Homeland Security official: "Any building or vehicle or airplane that the president is located is a high-value target for foreign intelligence services who want to gather as much information about the president."
There has been a surprising bipartisan criticism of this planned acceptance of the Qatari plane.
On top of the Senators I mentioned earlier in this piece, swing district Republicans like Rep. Mike Lawler (NY) have also called this out, appearing on Fox Business, stating: "We don't want to be straight up accepting any type of gift from any foreign government, certainly not one that can be viewed in a way that obviously has been presented here."
Right-wing influencers have also spoken out, including Laura Loomer, who has become increasingly close with President Trump. In a post on Twitter/X, Loomer said of the gift acceptance, “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true… I’m so disappointed.”
On his podcast, Ben Shapiro called out the gift as “not America first,” and said, “I think inherently it is bad. I do not think this is good. I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the Right… President Trump promised to drain the swamp. This is not, in fact, draining the swamp.”
In that same podcast episode, Shapiro outlined Trump’s crypto ventures and how foreigners are buying Trump’s memecoin, and said, “This raises the question of influence peddling.”
From Saudi real estate and UAE crypto ventures to a $400 million jet gifted by Qatar, Trump’s Middle East trip isn’t just foreign policy—it’s a showcase of open corruption. It’s a transparent blurring of state power and personal profit.
This isn’t diplomacy. It’s a global pay-to-play operation in motion. If our institutions fail to hold Trump accountable, this becomes the new normal, and the presidency becomes just another asset on the Trump family balance sheet.
Very clear corruption, Ahmed, and you do a great job of detailing the pay-to-play purpose of this trip. Do the American taxpayers approve of the spending of their money for this personal jaunt? I, for one, certainly resent it!