Trump meets Syria's president before heading to Qatar on his Mideast tour

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

90% : Trump agreed to "say hello" to al-Sharaa before the U.S. leader wraps up his stay in Saudi Arabia and heads to Qatar, where Trump is to be honored with a state visit.
68% : The oil-rich country is also in the center of a controversy over its offer to provide Trump with the gift of a luxury Boeing 747-8 that the U.S. could use as Air Force One while new versions of the plane are under construction by Boeing.
62% : Prince Mohammed joined Trump and al-Sharaa for the meeting, which lasted for about 33 minutes.
62% : But Trump has defended the idea even as critics argue it would amount to a president accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government.
55% : Oil exports in Qatar began after World War II, though it would take until 1997 before Qatar began shipping out liquefied natural gas to the world.
49% : "There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace," Trump said in a wide-ranging foreign policy address Tuesday in which he announced he was lifting the sanctions that have been in place in Syria since 2011.
48% : After the talks with al-Sharaa, Trump headed to a meeting Wednesday in Riyadh with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before setting off for Qatar, the second stop in his Mideast tour.
47% : ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Trump said he decided to meet with al-Sharaa after being encouraged to do so by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
47% : Trump has indicated he would refurbish the aircraft and it would later be donated to his post-White House presidential library.
45% : The president, early Wednesday in a social media post, said the plane "is a gift from a Nation, Qatar, that we have successfully defended for many years." "Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done," Trump added.

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