Qatar Airways announced Wednesday that it planned to buy as many as 210 Boeing jets, the latest deal signed during President Trump’s four-day visit to the Arabian Peninsula.
“It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the company’s wide-body jets.
The president boasted that the deal was worth $200 billion, but a fact sheet from the White House said the true number was $96 billion.
GE Aerospace, which builds the jets’ engines, was also partner to the deal.
The United States and Qatar also signed a statement of defense cooperation. That cooperation, the White House said, includes a $1 billion agreement with Raytheon for Qatar’s acquisition of counter-drone capabilities; a nearly $2 billion agreement with General Atomics for Qatar’s acquisition of a remotely piloted aircraft system; and $38 billion in potential investments including support for burden-sharing at Al Udeid Air Base, which houses Qatari, American and British airmen.
In total, the White House said, the deals announced by Mr. Trump amounted to more than $243 billion between the United States and Qatar. The Trump administration also said the agreements with Qatar were expected to “generate an economic exchange” of $1.2 trillion, though it was unclear how the administration arrived at that figure.
Multiple outlets, including Bloomberg News and NewsNation, reported on the Boeing deal before it was announced.
Mr. Trump and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, watched as their defense ministers and the chiefs of Boeing and Qatar Airways signed the agreements.
“After signing these documents, we are going to another level of relationship,” the Qatari leader said.
Mr. Trump received a hero’s welcome in Doha, Qatar’s capital. The Qataris rolled out a literal red carpet for the president, who pumped his fist before walking down the steps of Air Force One, where Sheikh al-Thani greeted him.
During a welcoming ceremony, men dressed in traditional white robes accompanied the president’s motorcade on Arabian horses and camels.
“We have the best equipment anywhere in the world,” Mr. Trump said. “You’re buying a lot of that equipment, actually.”
The deals signed Wednesday did not include a controversial plan for the Qataris to donate a $400 million luxury jet for Mr. Trump to use as a new Air Force One. Mr. Trump has argued Air Force One is too old and that it compares unfavorably while sitting next to the jets of Arab nations at international airports. But the gift has raised ethical concerns, and Qatar has said it is still under review.
The purchase of the Boeing planes announced in Doha followed a similar announcement of deals made while Mr. Trump was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The White House on Tuesday said the president had secured $600 billion in deals with the Saudi government and firms. But the details provided were vague, and some of the deals announced as new had already been in the works.
Organizers of the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, where the deals were announced, said that 145 deals were signed, totaling more than $300 billion, just half of the total promoted on Tuesday by the White House.
The biggest deal announced in Saudi Arabia was a nearly $142 billion agreement for over a dozen American defense industry companies to provide the kingdom with state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and service.
The White House also trumpeted a commitment from the Saudi company DataVolt to move forward with plans to invest $20 billion in artificial intelligence data centers and energy infrastructure in the United States.
It also promoted more than $2 billion in work that American firms were performing on Saudi infrastructure projects, among them King Salman International Airport, King Salman Park and Qiddiya City, a massive entertainment complex. Several of those projects were already underway.
The construction company Jacobs announced its involvement in the new Saudi airport project last August. AECOM, another construction and infrastructure firm, likewise, had already won a contract to provide design and project management services for the Qiddiya City project.
