President Trump flew to the Middle East this week and announced more than a trillion dollars’ worth of economic deals between the U.S. and countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The investment deals with Qatar could reach $1.2 trillion. Qatar Airways has agreed to buy 210 Boeing jets worth $96 billion. Saudi Arabia also signed deals — more than 150 of them — that are worth another trillion.

Not a bad week’s work.

Trump also delivered a historic speech on Tuesday in Riyadh that called for America to flip 75 years of its geopolitical strategy on its head.

He said it’s time for us to start using commerce and diplomacy instead of wars and bombs to bring peace, stability and prosperity to the Middle East.

But what was our liberal media obsessed with? A previously owned airplane.

Thanks to the Trump Hate media, the news we heard most about this week was the gift to Trump of a used $400 million Boeing 747 from the Qatari royal family.

Despite the outrage, however, the huge jetliner will not actually be Trump’s personal plane.

It will not be parked at Mar-a-Lago to fly him to one of his weekend golf outings. And unless he buys it first, he won’t be able to sell it for cash or give it to Putin.

If it’s gutted, retooled and outfitted with all the secret communications gear and high-tech security devices Air Force One needs, which reportedly is unlikely to happen, the previously owned plane would essentially serve as a $600 million flying company car for the White House.

The Boeing 747, which should be ready for JD Vance when he becomes president in 2028, is by far the most expensive presidential gift ever. But every president has received presents from foreign leaders or their governments.

My dad was given a ton of them, including an elephant. The president of Mexico gave him a horse. The animals are long gone, but a sampling of his gifts is on display at the Reagan Library.

So is the Air Force One that my father and five other presidents traveled on from 1973-2001. A Boeing 707, it’s on loan from the Air Force, which still has ownership.

What bothers me most about the media weaponizing the Qatari’s gift of the airplane is the media could have spent more time covering the impact of Trump’s historic, action-packed trip.

Along with the business and defense deals he and his team announced with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Trump included announcements he was lifting sanctions on Syria and, on Thursday, that Iran is ready to sign a nuclear deal with the U.S. in exchange for our lifting of economic sanctions.

The business deals are great news for the homeland. They are going to create thousands of jobs at Boeing and its subsidiaries and at other American places.

But more important in the long run was what Trump said in his big speech on Tuesday about his goal for America to use commerce to bring lasting peace and prosperity to a part of the world that has had far too little of both for a century.

Speaking of criticism of our traditional role as the sponsor or participant in the Middle East’s bloody “forever wars,” I saw an interview with Joey Jones, the Fox contributor who had most of both legs blown off by a mine in 2010 while serving with the Marines in Afghanistan.

Jones said for the last 20 years we’ve had all these wars in the Middle East that were supposed to be about nation building and fostering democracy — and we lost them all.

He said he doesn’t want to see his 15-year-old boy sent overseas to fight in another unnecessary war that takes us 15 years to lose.

Maybe it’s time to do it Trump’s way, Jones said. I bet most Americans agree. So do I.

Copyright 2025 Michael Reagan