Boeing and GE Aerospace secured a $96 billion agreement to sell Qatar Airways up to 210 aircraft, the White House said Wednesday.
The deal for the 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft powered by GE engines is Boeing’s “largest-ever widebody order and largest-ever 787 order,” according to the White House.
The companies struck the agreement during President Donald Trump’s state visit with the emir of Qatar.
The White House said in a fact sheet that the deal will support 154,000 U.S. jobs annually and over 1 million total domestic jobs over the course of production and delivery.
Further details were unclear. Boeing did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg appeared alongside Trump at the Amiri Diwan in Doha earlier Wednesday for a signing ceremony on the aircraft deal.
“It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing,” Trump said after Ortberg signed the agreement.
The deal could be a boon for Boeing, which has not posted a profit since 2018.
The planemaker has been beset by major safety concerns, manufacturing defects, cost overruns and a nearly two-month-long machinist strike last year.
Its business dealings have also been disrupted by Trump’s trade war: China stopped accepting deliveries of Boeing planes to its airlines in response to U.S. tariffs, Ortberg said last month.
But the company has recently narrowed its losses as it addresses a backlog worth more $500 billion, Ortberg said in Boeing’s first-quarter earnings call.
The deal announced Wednesday would nearly double Qatar Airways’ fleet of 233 aircraft, according to its website.
It could also draw more scrutiny toward Trump’s acceptance, and defense, of Qatar’s offer to gift the U.S. a luxury 747 jet that will act as the new Air Force One.
Democrats have blasted the move as corrupt and unconstitutional, and some of Trump’s Republican allies in government and media have also expressed unease.
The prospect has drawn bipartisan pushback, which Trump has met with indifference.
“Qatar is not, in my opinion, a great ally. I mean, they support Hamas. So what I’m worried about is the safety of the president,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told reporters on Tuesday.
U.S. relations with Doha have come a long way since 2017, when Trump accused Qatar of harboring terrorism: “The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level,” Trump said at the time. From there, Qatar became a major non-NATO ally to the U.S. in 2022 under President Joe Biden and is home to Al Udeid Air Base, one of the U.S.’s largest Middle Eastern bases and a key hub for U.S. Central Command operations. Qatar has been at the forefront of peace and hostage negotiations, especially in the war between Israel and Hamas. An Israeli delegation traveled to Doha on Tuesday to hash out a potential agreement on a hostage exchange and ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
In March, weeks of negotiations led by U.S. and Qatari mediators led to the release of American George Glezmann, who had been imprisoned by the Taliban in Afghanistan for more than two years. Doha’s negotiators were also involved in the U.S.-Hamas deal to release the last living American hostage, Edan Alexander, on Monday.
The Trump Organization has also cinched a new deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, partnering with Qatari Diar, a real estate company backed by that country’s sovereign wealth fund.
By Agencies
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