Qatar’s proposed gift of a $400 million luxury jet to the United States for a potential use for Air Force One “raises more questions than I think it’s worth” and poses a potential conflict of interest for President Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday.
“There are a lot of ways this could be arranged, but I think what sent up signals that people were concerned about was that it was going to be temporarily part of the government, and then it was going to the president’s library when the president retires,” the Kentucky Republican said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.”
Those issues, though, “could be corrected,” and there is likely a “perfectly legal way” to accept the jet, but as for now, the questions about the jet are overshadowing Trump’s successes in the Middle East, and it gives the “appearance of a conflict of interest.”
“I think my fear is that it detracts from a largely successful trip where the president is talking about opening up and doing more trade with the Middle East, which is a good thing, particularly amidst all the protectionism and directing away from trade that we’ve had going on,” he said.
The United States, Paul added, sells more arms than any other nation, with much of the weaponry going to Gulf countries like Qatar.
“We have a veto in Congress, and I’ve been part of trying to veto arms to Qatar and Saudi Arabia over human rights abuses,” said Paul. “Could it color the perception of the administration if they have a $400 million plan to be more in favor of these things? Perhaps.”
Paul also discussed on Sunday Trump’s announcement of a temporary reduction to tariffs against China, and Walmart’s warning that prices will go up if the tariffs continue.
“Tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it is always passed through as a cost,” said Paul. “There will be higher prices.”
But it is also an “economic fallacy” to bring trade deficits into the argument, said Paul.
“The fallacy is that trade deficits actually mean anything,” he said. “They’re an artificial accounting. The only trade that means anything is the individual who buys something. That’s the only real trade. That, by the very definition, is [that] it’s voluntary, is mutually beneficial, or the trade doesn’t occur.”
He also disagreed with Trump’s contention that the United States is “subsidizing Canada” through a trade deficit.
“They’re not really related at all,” Paul said. “What happens if we trade with another country because they have less expensive goods is that we become richer. You also have more money that you can spend.”
But that doesn’t mean that the difference pits countries against each other, he argued. “All of that is artificial accounting,” said Paul. “We have had a trade deficit with China since 1976, and yet we got richer and they got richer … we’re richer than we have ever been in any time in our history, but it is not easy to convince people of that.”
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