US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he plans to sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. He made the announcement in the Oval Office and told reporters that the Saudis “want to buy them” and that they have been “a great ally.”
His comment came just a day before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House. This is the crown prince’s first trip to the US in over seven years. The two sides are expected to talk about Saudi Arabia possibly buying 48 F-35 jets and even discussing a mutual defence agreement.
Trump wants to sell F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia
According to the NYT, the F-35 is built by Lockheed Martin. Every year, the company produces between 150 and 190 jets. Around 20 countries already fly them or have placed orders.
Depending on the model, each plane can cost somewhere between $80 million and $110 million. “I will say that we will be doing that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’ll be selling the F-35s.”
The F-35 is one of the world’s most advanced warplanes. People call it the “quarterback” of the skies because it can gather lots of battlefield information and share that with ground troops, ships and other planes while carrying out long-range strikes, among other qualities. It has been used against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, and played a role in Israel’s strikes on Iran during a short war in June.
A 2024 Government Accountability Office study also warned that maintaining these jets over decades is extremely expensive, even more than earlier estimates.
Why Saudi Arabia wants the F-35
According to Bloomberg, Prince Mohammed is aiming for the jets to strengthen Saudi security. Riyadh currently feels threatened by countries like Iran and by armed groups across the region. Buying F-35s and forming close ties with the US are also part of their Vision 2030 plan to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and bring in foreign investment. This also includes tech and AI projects.
Why are the US officials worried?
Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest buyers of American weapons. But its actions in recent years have made several national security officials uneasy about giving Riyadh access to America’s most sensitive stealth technology.
The NYT reports that the Defence Intelligence Agency earlier raised a major concern: China might gain access to F-35 technology if the US goes ahead with the sale, because Saudi Arabia has a close security relationship with Beijing. This is something American officials see as a serious risk.
In 2019, the US removed Turkey from the F-35 program after Turkey bought Russia’s S-400 missile system. Officials worried that operating the F-35 alongside Russian gear might let Moscow learn how to defeat the jet. The same concern is now with China.
Another concern is about Israel’s military edge. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that currently uses F-35s in its arsenal. US law requires that Israel always maintain a “qualitative military edge” in the region, and some officials think that selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia could weaken that advantage.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration had hoped for a breakthrough in normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel has been putting in efforts for such a deal for years. But the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the conflict that followed in Gaza have nearly ended the chances of such an agreement for now.
Whereas some Republican lawmakers are uneasy about approving the jet sale unless Saudi Arabia agrees to normalise ties with Israel. Even if the Trump administration signs off on the sale, Congress still has the power to block it. But historically, lawmakers have struggled to stop arms deals, even when they strongly disagreed.
A former Israel Air Force chief, Eitan Ben Eliyahu, said a Saudi F-35 deal “would change the balance of power,” but added it would take at least four years for Saudi Arabia to actually get the planes, Bloomberg reported. He suggested Israel could get newer weapons in the meantime to keep its advantage.