Qatar Force One was never safe. Trump should return it.

The president of the United States of America should fly around in a plane that was built in the U.S., has always been in the possession of the U.S. government and is 100 percent safe for the president and his staff to use — even in a dangerous situation such as a shooting war with Iran.

You might think the above statement is not an unrealistic or exceedingly high bar for the Trump administration to clear. Alas, that is not the case.

At the beginning of July, President Donald Trump started using his new Qatari-donated version of Air Force One, a retrofitted Boeing 747-800 worth $400 million. Ever since the president announced the gift — no strings attached, surely! — many Americans have thought it was a bad idea, on all kinds of levels. In May 2025, a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 62 percent of registered voters said accepting the plane “raises ethical concerns about corruption.”

It was even more cringe-inducing when, before boarding the plane, Trump implied that the Qataris build better planes than Americans. “Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollar,” the president said. Ah yes, that infamously tightfisted U.S. federal government, which spent a mere $7 trillionlast year.

For what it’s worth, the Qatari-donated plane is U.S. made, by Boeing, and delivered to the Qatari royal family’s fleet (the Qatar Amiri Flight) back in 2012.

Even if you could close your eyes to the ethical problems, you had to wonder how secure a plane from Qatar was. (You know who used to work in the Qatari Water Department? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11.) If you doubt that accepting an unsolicited large-scale gift can lead to bigger problems, check out that new movie about how accepting a big wooden horse worked out for ancient Troy.

The president and the Pentagon repeatedly assured the public that the donated plane would be completely safe.

“The safety and security of the commander in chief is our highest priority,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a statement June 19. “From the beginning, we meticulously evaluated every requirement to accelerate delivery while maintaining the high standards expected of the presidential mission. This effort proves that the U.S. Air Force can move fast without sacrificing quality, security, or reliability.”

That statement also noted that“no risk was taken in security, safety or mission communications, but the collective team made trades on some of the less commonly used mission sets that Boeing must deliver to support the next 40 years.” The statement did not elaborate about what those “trades” were.

But as Trump prepared to leave the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this month, the first indication came that the new jet wasn’t up to the old standards. The president returned from the summit on the old Air Force One instead of the new Qatari-donated plane as a security precaution related to the resumption of hostilities with Iran.

Two U.S. officials told ABC News that “the change in plans was not prompted by a specific threat, but influenced in part by differences in the plane security capabilities.” The New York Times reported that the new plane “lacks the same defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model, including its advanced antimissile capabilities, according to multiple officials who have been briefed on how the jet was retrofitted.”

That report spurred an apoplectic response from the administration, which included subpoenaing New York Times reporters. Note that this whole mess could have been prevented by not using the Qatari-donated plane. Clearly, the two aging 747-200B jets that preceded the Qatari donation are still usable, because the president keeps using them.

On Sunday, asked why he was flying in the Qatari jet despite its shortcomings, Trump responded, “It has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out.”

Ah. The Qatari plane wasn’t completely safe, as the administration insisted. It’s going to take a month to be “maxed out,” presumably with advanced antimissile capabilities.

Accepting the donated plane was a terrible idea. A whole lot of people, on both sides of the aisle, warned that it was a terrible idea. Only the president’s vanity drove this decision. The best thing to do would be to give the plane back to Qatar with a Post-it note that says, “Thanks, but no thanks.” (Trump wants to transfer the plane to his presidential library after he leaves office.)

Boeing says new American-built replacements for Air Force One should be ready by 2028. Making do with the older planes until then is suboptimal. Still, it is better than the U.S. president flying around in a Qatari plane while gushing about how the Qataris build better planes than Americans do and waving away concerns about antimissile systems.