Donald Trump says US will sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite Pentagon concerns

President Donald Trump said Monday that he planned to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns from national security officials in his Administration that a sale could create an opportunity for China to steal the planes’ advanced technology.

“We will be doing that, we will be selling F-35s,” Mr Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office, explaining that the Saudis “want to buy them, they’ve been a great ally.”

“Look at the Iran situation, what we did in terms of obliterating — we obliterated their nuclear capability,” he said, seemingly referring to strikes that the United States and Israel carried out against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

Israel flew F-35s during those attacks, which might have set Iran’s nuclear program back by months.

Mr Trump’s announcement came on the eve of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia’s visit to the White House, where he was expected to discuss purchasing 48 of the fighter jets and a potential mutual defence agreement.

Saudi Arabia has long been the biggest purchaser of American weapons. But its conduct on the world stage has made some in government wary of the potential national security implications of giving the Saudis unfettered access to some of the United States’ most sensitive stealth technology, even if the kingdom has deep enough pockets to purchase it.

A recent report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, part of the Pentagon, raised concerns that China would be able to access F-35 technology if the United States were to finalise a deal to sell Saudi Arabia the warplanes, as Riyadh and Beijing have a security partnership.

Officials have also raised concerns that such a sale could compromise Israel’s regional “qualitative military edge” as the only country in the Middle East that currently has F-35s in its war arsenal.

Israel has been pushing for the Trump Administration to broker a deal to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, a goal that was showing some promise before Hamas’ deadly invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The bloody years of hostilities that ensued in the Gaza Strip have largely ended the prospect of such a pact. Nevertheless, some Republican lawmakers are uneasy about allowing the F-35 sale to go through unless Saudi Arabia normalises relations with Israel, according to people familiar with those discussions, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been actively lobbying members of Congress against it absent that condition.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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