Qatar denies its offer of $400mn jet to Trump is bribery
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Qatar’s prime minister has denied that his country’s offer of a $400mn jumbo jet to President Donald Trump was an attempt to buy influence, saying the US has historically accepted gifts from many nations.
“I see it as a normal thing that happens between allies,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday. “I don’t know why people are thinking that this is considered as bribery or . . . that Qatar wants to buy an influence with this administration.”
“This partnership . . . is a two-way relationship, it’s mutually beneficial for Qatar and for the United States,” he added.
The jet offer came ahead of Trump’s tour of the Gulf last week, during which he touted hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of investments into the US from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
In addition to the proposed transfer of the luxury Boeing 747 jet, Qatar announced multibillion dollar deals with the US, including agreeing to buy up to 210 aircraft from Boeing in what Trump hailed as the largest order of jets in the history of the company.
Trump defended his plan to accept the jet as a “great gesture” after members of the US Democratic party criticised the move as “corruption in plain sight”.
Sheikh Mohammed rejected suggestions that Qatar — one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas and among its richest nations — had sought to buy influence with the US or with other countries in the past.
“We need to overcome this stereotype of Qatar as a small Arab nation, because it’s gas-rich, it cannot find its way without buying it with money,” he said.
“Our intention is to have a very clear exchange . . . the US has a need to accelerate a temporary Air Force One, Qatar has the ability to provide this, we stepped up . . . a lot of nations have gifted the US many things. I’m not comparing that to the Statue of Liberty.”
All the Gulf states have sought to ingratiate themselves with Trump, while also wanting to buy American weapons and access US technology, particularly in artificial intelligence.
But Qatar, a US ally, has also been keen to court the American president in part because of its difficult experiences during his first term, as well as the scrutiny it has faced for its links to Hamas.
Shortly after Trump first visited the Gulf as president in 2017, he initially appeared to side with Saudi Arabia and the UAE when they led a nearly four-year regional embargo against Qatar, severing all diplomatic and transport links with their neighbour. Trump alleged at the time that Qatar was a “high-level” sponsor of terrorism, even as it hosted the biggest US military base in the region.
In the years since, Qatar — a small nation wary of its vulnerability to bigger neighbours — has sought to reinforce its value to the US by mediating on behalf of Washington, including with the Taliban and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
It has also been a lead mediator between Israel and Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza.
But its ties to Hamas — it has hosted the group’s political office since 2012 and poured aid into Gaza — have drawn criticism from some US lawmakers and Israeli politicians.
Trump has said the Boeing 747-8 would go “directly” to his presidential library when he left office, and that he would not use it after his term ended. A replacement plane for the existing Air Force One jet is being made by Boeing but has been delayed by several years.
“I appreciate it very much,” Trump said of the Qatari offer last week. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say ‘no, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane’.”
Additional reporting by Chloe Cornish in Dubai
