International

Trump says Air Force One Boeing order should be cancelled

US President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to cut government costs by cancelling the order for new planes to carry the American president.Mr Trump tweeted: ‘Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!’The government has a contract with Boeing to build two or more new planes. The White House appeared to cast doubt on the figures quoted by Mr Trump.‘Some of the statistics that have been cited, shall we say, don’t appear to reflect the nature of the financial arrangement between Boeing and the Department of Defence,’ White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.The new planes would enter service around 2024.Boeing shares fell more than 1% after the president-elect`s tweet, but recovered most of their losses in afternoon trading.Mr Trump would not fly on the new planes unless he won a second term in the 2020 election.The president-elect also announced on Tuesday that Japan’s SoftBank has agreed to invest $50bn (£39.4bn) in the US aimed at creating 50,000 new jobs. Mr Trump revealed the plan after meeting SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son at Trump Tower. ‘Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!’ he tweeted. Source: BBC