By accepting a gift of a like-new and opulent replacement for the current, rapidly-aging Air Force One from the king of Qatar, President Trump has spurred the far-left Dem Progressives (pronounced Damn Progressives) into another round of pointless faux outrage.
No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
If President Trump was doing what the Dems claim, this could even be an impeachable offense.
Why? Because, on the surface, it may appear that Trump has violated indeed this clause by accepting a gift worth $400 million from the emir of Qatar.
But this bogus charge overlooks several facts:
- Despite claims to the contrary, this new Air Force One will become the property of the Department of Defense’s U.S. Air Force, to be flown and maintained by the Air Force squadron based at Joint Base Andrews (formerly Andrews Air Force Base) that provides a variety of VIP transports for presidents and cabinet members, as it has done since the Eisenhower Administration.
- Trump has pledged his own personal wealth to help convert this flying palace to an aircraft more fitting to a president than a king. It will be compete with aerial protection devices – thankfully too top-secret to mention, except as “informed guesses” – also including top secret, highly-secure communications gear, allowing the president to conduct the affairs of state while in the air.
- After Trump completes his second and final term of office, he has pledged that the plane will be donated to the Trump Presidential Library. It might, like Reagan’s own Air Force One, to be literally built into the facility. There is precedent for this. One of the earlier models of Air Force One, in its military guise of VC-137A.
- When it was retired, it was literally built into the Reagan Presidential Library, along with one of the President’s VIP helicopters.
If you’d like to be impressed by a wonderful example of a Presidential library, find your way to Simi Valley.It is a great way to remember a great president.
- Trump is accepting this gift on behalf of the United States, just as President Grant accepted the Statue of Liberty from the Emperor of France, way back in 1876. Other presidents have accepted gifts from foreign nations and leaders, but always on behalf of the American people. Both the Clinton Presidential Library and the Reagan Presidential Library – I’ve seen them both, in detail – display hundreds, perhaps thousands of gifts made by countries, potentates and others to the American people. All perfectly legal.
The massive Boeing 747 that became the second type of jet-powered aircraft to become Air Force One started life as a design in competition for the U.S. Air Force’s massive new cargo transport. Three new designs competed for this honor, planes by Douglas, Boeing and Lockheed.
The Douglas design, which went on to become the wide-bodied DC-10 airliner and later, in military guise, the KC-10 cargo transport and aerial tanker aircraft. Lockheed’s design, which won the competition, became the C-5 Galaxy. An alternative Lockheed design went on to become a wide-bodied airliner, the Lockheed 1011.
The Lockheed C-5 went into production in the late 1960s, and by chance, the first article I ever wrote for publication was about this aircraft.
Researching it, I not only got to tour the production line, but also to climb the stairs up to the cockpit of the 82nd plane in production at Lockheed. As the C-5 M Super Galaxy, this plane remains in front line service with the US Air Force as its premier long-range heavy lifter. This latest version of the C-5 may well remain in service past the 100th anniversary of the design’s first flight.
Finally, among the runners-up, Boeing’s heavy-lifter became the conceptual airframe prototype for the Boeing 747 passenger and cargo jet airliner. This fifty-five-year-old aircraft remains in service today, though it is no longer in production. Several of these Boeing 747s became the first “wide-body” Air Force One, was vastly more capable than the 707 adaptation that it was replacing.
Now here’s where the Art of the Deal comes in.
During Trump’s first administration, back in 2018, he negotiated with Boeing for the construction of two newly rebuilt VC-25A – the VIP 747’s Air Force designation – to replace the then-aging aircraft. Though the Air Force sustains a vigorous maintenance schedule to ensure the planes are completely safe – and they are – between the age of the airframe (in years) and the tech that makes the plane useful as the President’s airborne “Oval Office,” which is several generations behind today’s state of the art.
They finally struck a deal, but then Boeing – realizing they were losing money on the fixed-price deal they struck – slow-walked the project.
A lot.
The contracted replacement Air Force One ordered by Trump’s direction in 2018 won’t be ready until at least 2029, after Trump has left office. These airframes were built decades ago, then eventually put out to pasture for less costly aircraft. Still in good shape, these are not even new builds, yet it’s taking Boeing more than a decade to refurbish them, equip them and get them to the Air Force.
And this is where the Qatari aircraft comes into play.
Even with all of the safety and security inspections, the stripping out of “royal” trappings – such as the reported solid-gold commodes used by the Qatari King – and installing a new interior with all the trappings of a presidential command post in the sky, this plane could be ready to be used by the president by September of this year. These upgrades – especially the interior features – will be revised under the president’s directions. But these planes are going to do much more than that.
They’re going to allow the president to implement The Art of the Deal.
For the first time, Boeing is looking at the possibility that – since they’re not now a sole-source provider – Trump could cancel their contract and seek out others in the private sector who could take over the aircraft Boeing has been upgrading for nearly a decade and finish the job much more quickly, at a lower cost.
Just as he’s done with tariffs.
Trump was quick to cast aside tarriff increases as soon as other nations came to the conference table; Trump now has something to hold over Boeing’s heads. He wants the planes he bargained for – and quickly – as he’s got less than four years left in office. If he can’t move Boeing off the dime, his own successor – either J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio – might be flying increasingly antiquated relics of the Cold War.
The Qatari King’s 747-800 is a stalking horse intended to push through an accelerated deal with Boeing. Nothing more. Well, one more. At least he’ll be flying in a state-of-the-art aircraft, instead of a relic.
Ned Barnett, a regular contributor to American Thinker since 2006, is an aviation and 20th century military historian. His first published article, written while he was still in college, The Aluminum Cloud, chronicled the competition among Lockheed, Boeing and Douglas Aircraft. He’s been the on-camera historian on nine History Channel programs, such as D-Day Tech and World War I Tech. He has a series of nine historical novels about the air war in the South Pacific, from Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal. The first of these is being edited now and will be published later this year.
When he’s not researching and writing about aircraft in war and peace, Ned is a ghostwriter – including an in-the-works ghostwritten autobiography for a candidate for governor in the 2026 election. He’s also a developmental editor, a publishing facilitator and a book/author promotion expert. He can be reached at 702-561-1167 or at nedbarnett51@gmail.com.
Image: Paul Gallo, via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 Deed
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