Do you think Trump will take them up on it?
The Ukrainian producer of the world's largest aircraft has offered to build a plane for Donald Trump after the U.S. president-elect said an order with Boeing Co for a new Air Force One should be scrapped.
“@realDonaldTrump May be it is better to consider #Antonov aircraft as Air Force One?," Ukrainian state-owned firm Antonov tweeted directly to Trump on Wednesday.
Trump's in a bit of a pickle, you see. Boeing's CEO opined during a speech that Trump's not-entirely-thought-out trade policies were not entirely well thought out, and that opinion being reported in a newspaper seems to be all it took for Trump, a mere twentyish minutes later, to accuse Boeing of massive cost overruns in a contract they don't have to build planes that aren't even designed yet.
Because that's how all our national policies will be decided now—by whether Donald J. Trump gets a bug up his ass on Twitter.
If Trump wants a presidential boycott of Boeing because Some Guy Made Him Sad, however, he's got a problem. He can either do without a new Air Force One entirely—surely not a problem for him, because the project will only be completed after he leaves office, in a straightjacket or otherwise—or he'll have to shop for other suitable airframes built by companies that don't employ Some Guy Who Made Trump Sad. That could be Europe's Airbus, Boeing's most direct competitor, or what the hell—perhaps a peppy little firm from that country that Paul Manafort and Trump's other friends seem so gosh-darn obsessed with.
It'd be a great choice for Trump—Antonov's flagship offering is the Mriya, the world's biggest cargo jet and a plane looks like Donald Trump's private jet giving birth to Donald Trump's public ego.
Who knows? If that's what it takes to ensure Trump is surrounded only by companies that luv him very very much, Trump might just do it.