Trump Says US Will Sell F-35 Stealth Fighters to Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON—The United States will sell F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump announced on Nov. 17.

“We will be doing that. We’ll be selling F-35s,” Trump told reporters during a White House press conference on Monday.

The president made the announcement a day before he is scheduled to host Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House.

The F-35 is one of the most advanced fighter jets in the U.S. arsenal and is the product of a multinational development project supported by Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Several other nations have joined the program in purchasing and co-producing the stealth fighter jet, but security concerns have led the United States to exercise caution about welcoming additional participants.

In 2019, the United States halted Turkey’s continued participation in the program, citing concerns about the Middle Eastern nation’s adoption of Russian S-400 air defense systems.

President Joe Biden, in 2021, paused a plan to sell F-35s to the United Arab Emirates, and the Arab nation abandoned subsequent efforts to revive the deal.

For now, Israel remains the only Middle East nation currently operating a variant of the F-35, conferring upon the Jewish state a notable military advantage over neighbors with which it has historically feuded.

The sale of these fighter jets could make for a delicate balancing act for the president’s Middle East policy.

Trump may welcome Saudi Arabia into the F-35 program as a way to gain favor with Riyadh and bring it closer to normalizing ties with Israel.

While speaking with reporters on Nov. 14, the president said he’d like to see the Gulf monarchy join the growing list of predominantly Muslim nations normalizing relations with the Jewish state under his Abraham Accords framework.

“I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly,” Trump said last week.

While several Arab states have joined the accords since Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia’s participation has continued to elude Washington.

In a speech at the United Nations in September 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested he was on the verge of a diplomatic breakthrough with Riyadh. Those efforts have stagnated following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly insisted it will not resume efforts to normalize relations with Israel without a clear path to concrete steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, a proposition Netanyahu opposes.