{"id":103741,"date":"2025-11-18T05:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=103741"},"modified":"2025-11-18T05:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:15:00","slug":"trump-says-well-be-selling-f-35s-to-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=103741","title":{"rendered":"Trump says \u2018we\u2019ll be selling\u2019 F-35s to Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Donald Trump said on Monday he plans to approve the sale of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, speaking a day before he hosts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a day of diplomacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say that we will be doing that,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. \u201cWe\u2019ll be selling the F-35s.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sale would mark a significant policy shift, potentially altering the military balance in the Middle East and testing Washington\u2019s definition of maintaining Israel\u2019s \u201cqualitative military edge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has requested to buy as many as 48 F-35 fighters, a potential multibillion-dollar deal that has cleared a key Pentagon hurdle ahead of bin Salman\u2019s visit,\u00a0Reuters reported early this month.<\/p>\n

The Saudis have long been interested in Lockheed Martin\u2019s\u00a0fighter. A senior White House official told Reuters before Trump spoke that the president wanted to talk to the crown prince about the jets, \u201cthen we\u2019ll make a determination.\u201d<\/p>\n

PERSONAL APPEAL<\/h2>\n

Saudi Arabia, the largest customer for U.S. arms, has sought the fighter for years as it looks to modernise its air force and counter regional threats, particularly from Iran. <\/p>\n

The kingdom\u2019s renewed push for what would constitute two squadrons comes as the Trump administration has signalled openness to deepening defence cooperation with Riyadh. <\/p>\n

The Saudi Air Force flies a mix of fighter aircraft, including Boeing\u00a0(BA.N), opens new tab\u00a0F-15s, European Tornados and Typhoons.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia made a direct appeal to buy the jets earlier this year to\u00a0Trump.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s policy department worked on the potential transaction for months, U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity had previously told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Washington weighs weapons sales to the Middle East in a way that ensures Israel maintains a \u201cqualitative military edge\u201d. This guarantees that Israel gets more advanced U.S. weapons than the regional Arab states.<\/p>\n

The F-35, built with stealth technology that allows it to evade enemy detection, is considered the world\u2019s most advanced fighter jet. <\/p>\n

Israel has operated the aircraft for nearly a decade, building multiple squadrons, and remains the only Middle Eastern country to possess the weapons system.<\/p>\n

The F-35 issue has also been intertwined with broader diplomatic efforts. The Biden administration previously explored providing F-35s to Saudi Arabia as part of a comprehensive deal that would have included Riyadh normalising relations with Israel, though those efforts ultimately stalled.<\/p>\n

Congressional scrutiny could pose challenges to any F-35 sale. <\/p>\n

Lawmakers previously questioned arms deals with Riyadh following the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and some members of Congress remain wary of deepening military cooperation with the kingdom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"TrumpPresident Donald Trump said on Monday he plans to approve the sale of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, speaking a day before he hosts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a day of diplomacy.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[993,12705,1910,10,9,4309],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-f-35s","category-international","category-politics","category-popular","category-saudi-arabia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}