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Qatar’s prime minister has denied that his nation’s supply of a $400mn jumbo jet to President Donald Trump was an try to purchase affect, saying the US has traditionally accepted items from many countries.
“I see it as a traditional factor that occurs between allies,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani informed the Qatar Financial Discussion board in Doha on Tuesday. “I don’t know why individuals are considering that that is thought of as bribery or . . . that Qatar desires to purchase an affect with this administration.”
“This partnership . . . is a two-way relationship, it’s mutually useful for Qatar and for the US,” he added.
Qatar’s jet supply got here as Trump made a whirlwind tour of the Gulf final week, touting trillions of {dollars}’ value of funding commitments into the US economic system from his hosts Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Along with the proposed present of the Boeing 747 jet, Qatar agreed to purchase as much as 210 plane from Boeing in what the American president hailed as the most important order of jets within the historical past of the US firm.
Trump defended his plan to simply accept the $400mn jet as a “nice gesture” after Democrats criticised the transfer as “corruption in plain sight”.
Sheikh Mohammed rejected options that Qatar had sought to purchase affect with the US administration or with different nations previously.
“We have to overcome this stereotype of Qatar as a small Arab nation, as a result of it’s gas-rich, it can’t discover its manner with out shopping for it with cash,” he stated.
“Our intention is to have a really clear alternate . . . the US has a must speed up a brief Air Pressure One, Qatar has the flexibility to offer this, we stepped up . . . quite a lot of nations have gifted the US many issues. I’m not evaluating that to the Statue of Liberty.”
Trump has stated the Boeing 747-8 would go “straight” to his presidential library when he left workplace, and that he wouldn’t use it after his time period ended. A substitute aircraft for the present Air Pressure One jet is being made by Boeing however has been delayed by a number of years.
“I respect it very a lot,” Trump stated of the Qatari supply final week. “I might by no means be one to show down that form of a proposal. I imply, I may very well be a silly particular person and say ‘no, we don’t desire a free, very costly airplane’.”
Extra reporting by Chloe Cornish in Dubai
