White House – Qatar Luxury Jet Talks Unveiled

White House – Qatar lux­u­ry jet dis­cus­sions are under­way as both par­ties nego­ti­ate a pos­si­ble trans­fer of a mod­ern air­craft for pres­i­den­tial use. On 11 May 2025, BBC News report­ed that the White House is in talks with the Qatari roy­al fam­i­ly over the poten­tial acqui­si­tion of a lux­u­ry jum­bo jet, which may serve as a tem­po­rary Air Force One. The main claim is that the deal, still under nego­ti­a­tion, would involve tem­po­rary use rather than a per­ma­nent gift, and could result in the air­craft being allo­cat­ed to Don­ald Trump’s pres­i­den­tial library after his term. The arti­cle begins:

The White House is cur­rent­ly engaged in talks with the Qatari roy­al fam­i­ly regard­ing the poten­tial acqui­si­tion of a lux­u­ry jum­bo jet, which could serve as an Air Force One air­craft for pres­i­den­tial pur­pos­es. In a recent state­ment, Qatar refut­ed claims that the jet would be a gift, clar­i­fy­ing that dis­cus­sions are under­way for the tem­po­rary trans­fer of an air­craft between the two nations. As report­ed by CBS News, the BBC’s Amer­i­can affil­i­ate, the air­craft is expect­ed to be allo­cat­ed to Don­ald Trump’s pres­i­den­tial library fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of his term. This rev­e­la­tion coin­cides with Trump’s upcom­ing vis­it to Qatar, mark­ing his first sig­nif­i­cant inter­na­tion­al trip dur­ing his sec­ond term in office. Al-Anari,‘s Medi­aé in the Unit­ed States, indi­cat­ed that nego­ti­a­tions are active Qatar’s of Defense the US of Defense. “The issue is still being eval­u­at­ed by the rel­e­vant legal teams, and no final deci­sion has been reached,” he stat­ed. Sources have informed CBS News that the jet will not be imme­di­ate­ly oper­a­tional, as it requires mod­i­fi­ca­tions and clear­ance from secu­ri­ty personnel.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5ell3gkxvo

Key Points

• White House – Qatar talks focus on a pos­si­ble tem­po­rary trans­fer, not a per­ma­nent gift, of a Boe­ing 747–8 aircraft.

• The air­craft could serve as Air Force One and lat­er be allo­cat­ed to Don­ald Trump’s pres­i­den­tial library.

• Legal and eth­i­cal reviews are ongo­ing, and the jet would require mod­i­fi­ca­tions and secu­ri­ty clear­ance before use.

• Qatar has a his­to­ry of gift­ing lux­u­ry jets to oth­er nations, and the cur­rent Air Force One fleet is over 30 years old.

Qatar’s Strategic Influence over the White House

On 15 May, the BBC report­ed that even some of Trump’s strongest sup­port­ers had voiced seri­ous reser­va­tions about the deal ahead of his Mid­dle East trip, describ­ing it as a “bribe”, grift, or an exam­ple of the high-lev­el cor­rup­tion that Trump him­self had con­sis­tent­ly promised to root out.

Qatar’s influ­ence over cur­rent and for­mer US admin­is­tra­tions has been mul­ti­fac­eted, lever­ag­ing lob­by­ing, elite con­nec­tions, and strate­gic invest­ments. Qatar has a clear aim to posi­tion itself as a priv­i­leged U.S. part­ner in the Mid­dle East, espe­cial­ly as U.S.-Saudi rela­tions cooled under Biden. The res­ig­na­tion of the Brook­ings Institution’s pres­i­dent amidst a Qatar lob­by­ing inves­ti­ga­tion fur­ther under­scored the Gulf state’s reach into influ­en­tial U.S. think tanks. These efforts par­al­leled broad­er pat­terns of for­eign influ­ence oper­a­tions, as seen in the impris­on­ment of Imaad Zuberi for his role in polit­i­cal influ­ence schemes that includ­ed Qatari inter­ests. More recent­ly, the appoint­ment of Pam Bon­di, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a lob­by­ist for Qatar, as Trump’s Attor­ney Gen­er­al nom­i­nee high­light­ed direct Qatar lob­by­ing ties with­in the administration.

In 2017, Qatar’s lob­by­ists had iden­ti­fied and tar­get­ed a list of 250 indi­vid­u­als close to Pres­i­dent Trump, aim­ing to shift U.S. pol­i­cy by arrang­ing meet­ings, offer­ing trips to Doha, and lever­ag­ing per­son­al con­nec­tions. Oth­er sources revealed that Qatar had hired numer­ous U.S. lob­by­ing and PR firms–sometimes pay­ing up to $500,000 a month–to advo­cate its inter­ests, counter rivals like Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE, and pro­mote its image as a key U.S. ally, includ­ing orches­trat­ing pub­lic cam­paigns and lever­ag­ing for­mer U.S. offi­cials and pol­i­cy­mak­ers. These efforts includ­ed out­reach to Jew­ish-Amer­i­can lead­ers, for­mer Trump advi­sors, and high-pro­file fig­ures such as Rudy Giu­liani, with some con­tracts and trips rais­ing ques­tions about trans­paren­cy and intent.

Exter­nal References:

• The New Lob­by­ing: Qatar Tar­get­ed 250 Trump ‘Influ­encers’ to Change U.S. Pol­i­cy – Wall Street Journal

• Qatar’s State-of-the-Art For­eign Lob­by­ing Cam­paign – Tablet Magazine

• Lob­by­ists and PR war­fare: How Qatar won back Wash­ing­ton – Jerusalem Post

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.