The Senate on Wednesday defeated two resolutions aimed at blocking certain weapons sales to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with five Democrats voting with nearly all Republicans against both resolutions.

The 56-39 votes came as a pressure tactic from some progressive Democrats on the two U.S. partners and the Trump administration over dealings between President Donald Trump and the two Gulf states — Qatar’s provision of a luxury jumbo jet to serve as Air Force One and the UAE’s investment of $2 billion in a Trump-linked cryptocurrency.

Democratic Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) voted against the two resolutions. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted present.

Coons said in a statement that “these resolutions don’t hold President Trump accountable” and will not punish Trump at all, but will rather “target other countries for the actions of our president, countries that host more than 10,000 U.S. troops on strategically important bases and are our partners.”

He said that blocking the sales would weaken two pillars of stability in the region and create space from those partners at a critical time, as well as make other nations doubt Congress’ reliability. 

He said the sales were negotiated years ago. 

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who led the effort with Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has framed the arms sales as a direct response to “cash payments” from the two nations. 

“Normally those might be deals that Congress would approve, but we cannot approve any security relationship today with countries in the Middle East that are engaged in the fundamental corruption of American foreign policy,” Murphy said earlier this week. “The Trump administration is moving these sales forward as part of a broader scheme which enriches Donald Trump to the tune of billions of dollars.”

He said the Qataris are looking to be “not left out” of the second Trump administration and that the Emiratis are seeking “our secrets,” specifically sensitive semiconductor technology that could be compromised by China.

Republicans’ essentially united front against the resolutions came even though multiple Senate Republicans have expressed deep skepticism of Qatar and called for its status as a major non-NATO ally to be reconsidered.

Murphy, meanwhile, in a Senate floor speech earlier this week expressed gratitude for Qatar in spite of the resolutions.

“What makes this moment so dangerous is that both UAE and Qatar, but especially Qatar, are key partners of the United States,” Murphy said. “They’re imperfect allies, but they are our allies. In fact, I’ve been down on this floor in the past arguing on behalf of Qatar and the U.S.-Qatar relationship, when other senators have tried to denigrate the Qataris’ contributions to regional peace. The Qataris have been a critical partner of ours on so many important issues.”

He suggested that Qatar had felt bullied by the Trump administration into offering the jet and “feels like it had little choice but to say yes when asked for this $400 million gift” because the U.S. had punished and isolated Qatar during the first Trump administration when Saudi Arabia and the UAE “effectively ganged up to blockade Qatar and Trump gave that move implicit consent.” 

He claimed that the UAE had first set the precedent for Qatar by investing in Trump’s cryptocurrency, leaving Qatar to play catch-up.

But he also noted that the U.S. has never allowed any other Middle East country to buy MQ-9 Reaper drones, the weapons sale to Qatar in question, because the U.S. has felt that such transfers are too risky.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed on Wednesday that the memorandum of understanding between the Trump administration and Qatar for the gift of a luxury jet worth $400 million to join the Air Force One fleet has not been completed and signed.

Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine were pressed repeatedly on the terms of the contract allowing for the U.S. to formally accept the Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Qatar while testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on the Pentagon’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. The two largely declined to answer questions on the subject given the public setting, though the defense secretary acknowledged that the MOU was still being worked on.

“Any specifics about future aircraft that could be Air Force One can’t be discussed here, but there is a conversation about a memorandum of understanding. A memorandum of understanding remains to be signed,” Hegseth said in response to Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) asking if the U.S. was currently in possession of the jet.

Hegseth declined to answer Reed’s subsequent questions about the price of the contract to reconfigure the aircraft, saying he would provide it to the senator’s office but could not divulge that information in public. He offered the same response when Reed asked about the delivery time for the reconfiguration contract. 

Reed pointed out that the terms of the contract originally signed with Boeing to deliver the next Air Force One jets were public while criticizing the secrecy around this deal. 

“The Boeing information was public knowledge — the delivery date, the cost, the course overruns — but this is not, because this is not only a bad deal for the American public, it is just gratifying the presidency, that’s all it is,” Reed said.

Later in the hearing, Hegseth again confirmed to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) that the MOU was still not signed. The Connecticut senator then pressed the defense secretary on the need for the Qatari jet, noting that the extensive modifications and security enhancements may keep it from being usable before Boeing’s new fleet of Air Force Ones are ready in 2028. 

“It doesn’t stand to reason that you will be able to retrofit the plane from Qatar much sooner than 2028 so I’m trying to understand what the gap is that we’re trying to fill. If this contract ends up being a half a billion dollars and the gap only ends up being six months, that doesn’t sound like a wise investment for this committee to make,” Murphy said.

Hegseth replied by pointing to the repeated delays from Boeing in delivering on their new fleet. “I don’t know that’s a firm fixed date yet, unfortunately, that can be counted on,” Hegseth said.

A senior Air Force official testified at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing last month that Boeing had told the service that it could potentially deliver the fleet by 2027 if certain requirements were lifted.

After Hegseth told Murphy it was his understanding that the plane would be transferred to Trump’s presidential library at the conclusion of his term, the Connecticut senator replied: “Why would we ask the American taxpayer to spend upwards of $1 billion on a plane that would then only be used for a handful of months and then transferred directly to the president?”

Hegseth emphasized the importance of the modifications to “ensure the safety and security of the president of the United States,” but did not address Murphy’s question directly. 

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) pressed Hegseth on whether the Department of Defense or the Qataris initiated conversations about the jet and how the transaction came to be. Hegseth said he would need to “go back and review” the details and did not go into specifics, to which Schatz asked, “I think it kind of matters who’s asking, doesn’t it?”

“I think this is illegal and unconstitutional and I won’t rant about that, but I actually think from the standpoint of our collective responsibilities it very much matters what the paper flow was. Who started these conversations? Did it come out of the White House, did it come out of the secretary of state or the president or the SEC Def [secretary of defense] or at a lower level or ambassadors?” Schatz asked. 

“We’re entitled to know, because we can agree or disagree about the propriety of this, but my basic request of you is that if we’re going to disagree, let’s disagree with the same set of facts. Let’s have the documentation on the Qatari aircraft,” he continued.

During President Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East earlier this month, he shuttled between Gulf capitals to announce major economic deals. In Qatar, it was an eye-popping $1.2 trillion economic commitment in trade agreements and direct investment. Saudi Arabia pledged to invest $600 billion in the United States in defense, energy and infrastructure. And in the United Arab Emirates, Trump announced a series of agreements — including one to build Stargate UAE, the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the United States, in partnership with OpenAI and Nvidia — worth more than $200 billion, on top of $1.4 trillion previously committed in U.S. investments.

Missing from the list of deals announced on Trump’s Middle East junket was any kind of similar agreement with Israel, which Trump did not visit on his first major trip abroad since returning to office. Economic ties between the U.S. and Israel are strong; Israel is a larger trading partner to the U.S. than either Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Qatar, and American investors are among the biggest investors in Israeli startups. But the country lacks the liquid financial firepower that is available to the oil-rich Gulf monarchies, which risks placing Israel at a disadvantage in the eyes of an American president who sees the world as a series of business deals. 

“You try not to compete in areas where you have a disadvantage. We have a capital disadvantage. So we should compete where we have an advantage, which is on innovation and technology,” said Michael Eisenberg, who co-founded Aleph, an Israeli VC firm. 

Some Israeli business leaders and innovators are now urging the country to seriously consider adopting a strategy of “economic diplomacy” to place the country more firmly on Trump’s radar. They think that startup founders and venture capitalists stand to serve as Israel’s best ambassadors, better suited to make the economic case for deepening U.S.-Israel ties than the buttoned-up bureaucrats who populate global capitals advancing Israel’s interests.

“Founders are Israel’s best ambassadors. They travel more than diplomats, pitch to the world’s biggest investors and solve real-world problems that transcend borders,” said Jon Medved, the Israel-based CEO of OurCrowd, a global venture investing platform. “Do they have a responsibility to engage in economic diplomacy? I think they already do, whether they realize it or not.” 

Where the Gulf countries have the ability to spend seemingly endless sums of money on American investments and projects to woo Trump, Israel offers “deep tech expertise” and a venue for early stage collaboration that cannot easily be replicated. 

“We’re the lab. The Gulf can be the scale-up market,” Medved continued. “There’s a powerful opportunity for synergy, not just competition.” 

It’s not news to the American government that Israel excels in technology. In 2022, the two countries launched a strategic high-level dialogue on technology as a way to advance cooperation on artificial intelligence, climate change and pandemic preparedness. (The dialogue slowed down after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.) 

Avner Golov, who until 2023 served as the senior director for foreign policy in Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office, thinks the collaboration between the two countries should be formalized with a photo op, like the signing ceremonies Trump participated in during his visit to the Gulf. The U.S.-Israel security memorandum of understanding, which promises Israel $3.3 billion in U.S. security assistance annually, expires in 2028, and Golov thinks the renegotiation of that agreement is an opportunity to strengthen the tech and economic ties between the countries — to put Israel’s tech diplomacy to the test. 

“I envision going to the White House Rose Garden, signing, for the first time, a formal strategic partnership between Israel and America, approved in both Congress and the Israeli Knesset,” Golov told Jewish Insider. Such a deal, as Golov sees it, might also include ways to make it easier for American businesses to operate in Israel. 

Eisenberg, who has invested in major Israeli startup successes such as WeWork and Lemonade, thinks changes to Israel’s “regulatory environment” can help make the sell to American companies and, by extension, Trump. 

“We’re not going to do zero taxes like Dubai, but we need to be attracting more capital here by making our regulatory environment much simpler and lowering our capital gains taxes to be competitive with the United States so that we can bring capital formation vehicles like hedge funds to Israel,” Eisenberg said. 

Of course, many leading tech companies already have large operations in Israel. The chip giant Nvidia announced a $500 million investment in an Israeli AI research data lab in January. In March, Google acquired the Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion, Google’s largest-ever acquisition. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Google President Ruth Porat were with Trump in Saudi Arabia, along with other top CEOs. 

“Many of them have employees in Israel because of our innovation, but we need to build a strategy around attracting them, getting deeper engagement and using them in our attempt to build us into a regional superpower,” added Eisenberg. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long touted Israel’s startup ecosystem, but some worry he has not sufficiently tapped into that world to meet the moment, when Trump — whom Netanyahu has always sought to present as a close friend — seeks flashy financial success on the world stage. 

“[Netanyahu] should have realized that in a competition for the affections of a strongman like Trump, Israel had little to offer,” The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg wrote this month. 

But the basis of the U.S.-Israel relationship has never been purely about dollars and cents. 

“If we’re going to make sure, ‘Hey, don’t forget about us,’ it’s not about money. It’s about morality and humanity and the purpose of Israel on the world stage,” former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides told JI. “Obviously there’s this whole notion that there are a lot of deals to be done. But that’s not how we compete.” 

The Department of Defense formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Qatar for President Donald Trump’s use as Air Force One, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday.

Parnell said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth accepted the jet “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations” and that the Defense Department would “work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States.”

The jet will require extensive modifications and security enhancements to be used as Air Force One, which must operate as a mobile command center for the president. Aviation experts estimate the upgrades could cost over $1 billion.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting on Tuesday that the Air Force has already begun exploring the extent of the upgrades required and that he would warn Trump and Hegseth should any concerns arise about the Air Force’s ability to ensure the plane is secure enough.

The Air Force said in a statement to Defense News that it currently has no information about its timeline for modifying the plane.

At a value of $400 million, the jet is one of the most expensive gifts given to a U.S. president. Experts and lawmakers have raised concerns of the transfer potentially violating the Constitution’s anti-bribery emoluments clause.

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and a prolific Jewish philanthropist and GOP donor, appeared among other guests at the Lusail Palace in Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday to greet President Donald Trump and Qatari emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Lauder has met with Qatari leadership several times since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, largely to advocate for the release of hostages held in Gaza. 

He led a WJC delegation to Doha shortly after the attack, from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, 2023, where he “engaged in pivotal discussions with leaders in Qatar” and said he “trust[ed] that the esteemed Arab leaders will dedicate their efforts to saving lives,” according to a WJC statement. 

Weeks later during the first ceasefire and hostage-release in the Israel-Gaza war, Lauder expressed his “profound gratitude to the government of Qatar and its leadership, along with the leaders of the United States and Egypt, for their significant role in facilitating” the agreement.

Lauder also met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani in Paris in September 2024 to advocate for the hostages, a meeting that was attended by Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz.