U.S. Formally Accepts Luxury Jet From Qatar for Trump

The United States has accepted a 747 jetliner as a gift from the government of Qatar, and the Air Force has been asked to figure out a way to rapidly upgrade it so it can be put into use as a new Air Force One for President Trump, a Defense Department spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

“The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” the chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said in a statement. “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”

The plane, which industry executives estimated is worth about $200 million, will require extensive work before it can be considered secure enough to carry Mr. Trump, Pentagon officials have acknowledged in recent days.

“Any civilian aircraft will take significant modifications to do so,” Troy Meink, the Air Force secretary, said on Tuesday during Senate testimony. “Based on the secretary’s direction, we are postured and we’re off looking at that right now, what it’s going to take for that particular aircraft.”

The plan has drawn concern from members of Congress, who worry that Mr. Trump will pressure the Air Force to do the work so fast that sufficient security measures are not built into the plane, such as missile defense systems or even systems to protect the plane from the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear blast.

“If President Trump insists on converting this plane to a hardened Air Force One before 2029, I worry about the pressures you may be under to cut corners on operational security,” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, said as Mr. Meink was testifying.

The Pentagon has not given an estimate of when the work on the Qatari plane might be done, even though Mr. Trump and the White House have made clear the president wants it soon, perhaps even by the end of the year.

“We will make sure that we do what’s necessary to ensure security of the aircraft,” Mr. Meink said at the Senate hearing. “I will be quite clear and discuss that with the secretary up to the president if necessary if we feel there’s any threats that we are unable to address.”

The gift also has drawn questions from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who worry that Qatar may be trying to improperly influence Mr. Trump, or that the plane itself might have listening devices.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, publicly said on Monday for the first time that his government had approved turning over the plane as a gift, rejecting the idea of it being an attempt to influence the president.

“I don’t know why people, they are thinking,” he said, before continuing “this is considered as a bribery or considered as, something that Qatar wants to buy and influence with this administration. I don’t see any, honestly, a valid reason for that.”

He added: “We are a country that would like to have strong partnership and strong friendship, and anything that we provide to any country, it’s provided out of respect for this partnership and it’s a two-way relationship. It’s mutually beneficial for Qatar and for the United States.”

The new plane will be the third being retrofitted for use as Air Force One, replacing two planes that have been in use for 35 years and have had maintenance problems.

But maintaining the staff and equipment for three planes is extraordinarily expensive, an estimated $135 million a year for each plane, according to the Pentagon. And it could cost $1 billion or more to retrofit the Qatari plane to get it ready for use as Air Force One, a process that former Air Force officials said could take longer than finishing the job Boeing is already doing to deliver the first two planes.