As catnip for a high-end mendicant like Donald Trump, the Boeing 747-8 is unbeatable. It’s an exquisite machine, a perfect consummation of form and function and last in a line of one of the greatest airplanes ever built. It’s also a haunting specter for Boeing of a supremacy it achieved and then lost.

President Donald Trump's trip to Qatar was overshadowed by his plan to accept a $400 million 747 jet as a gift from the country.

The Qatar-Boeing deal is the latest in a series of high-profile aviation agreements signed during Trump’s four-day Middle East visit. Just a day earlier, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund inked a $4.8 billion agreement with Boeing, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced a $10 billion order from a British airline.

Boeing scored the biggest aircraft sale in its history in a deal announced yesterday by President Trump. Qatar Airways is buying up to 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft, all made in the U.S. with GE Aerospace engines, the White House announced.

Aboard Air Force One, Trump lamented to Fox News host Sean Hannity of the U.S. government plane's comparative old age of 40 years and lackluster appearance next to Qatar's, Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates' "brand new Boeing 747s."

U.S. President Donald Trump has left Qatar for the United Arab Emirates on the final leg of his Middle East tour.

The White House announced that President Donald Trump secured economic exchanges with Qatar worth $1.2 trillion, a figure which includes a historic order for Boeing airliners.

The U.S. government's deal with Qatar to accept the jet has drawn scrutiny from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.