Trump okays breakthrough Saudi F-35 jets deal on eve of MBS visit

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Monday the United States would sell F-35 stealth fighters to Saudi Arabia, a day before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits the White House for talks.

“We will be doing that. We will be selling F-35s,” Trump told reporters when asked if Washington would agree to sell Riyadh the jets at Tuesday´s meeting. “They’ve been a great ally,” he added.

A sale would mark a significant policy shift, potentially altering the military balance in the Middle East and testing Washington’s definition of maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge.”

Saudi Arabia has requested the purchase of as many as 48 F-35 fighter jets, a potential multibillion-dollar deal that has cleared a key Pentagon hurdle ahead of bin Salman’s visit, Reuters reported early this month.

The Saudis have long been interested in Lockheed Martin’s fighter. A senior White House official told Reuters before Trump spoke that the president wanted to talk to the crown prince about the jets, “then we’ll make a determination.”

Trump´s approval comes despite a New York Times report that US officials had raised concerns that superpower rival China could acquire the sophisticated warplane’s technology if the sale to Saudi Arabia went through.

The US has so far only allowed the sales of F-35s to its closest allies, including a number of European NATO allies and Israel.

Washington kicked Turkey out of the F-35 programme in 2019 because Ankara’s purchase of a Russian air defence system sparked fears that Moscow could acquire the plane’s technology through the back door.

AI, nuclear on agenda

The crown prince’s, widely known by his initials MBS, visit to the White House for talks with the US president aims to deepen decades-old cooperation on oil and security while broadening ties in commerce, technology and potentially even nuclear energy.

It will be the first trip by the crown prince to the US since 2018.

Trump is seeking to cash in on a $600 billion Saudi investment pledge made during Trump’s visit to the kingdom in May. He steered clear of mentioning human rights concerns during that trip and is expected to do so again.

The Saudi leader is seeking security guarantees amid regional turmoil and wants access to artificial intelligence technology and progress toward a deal on a civilian nuclear programme.

Focus on defence deal

The Washington and the Riyadh have long had an arrangement for the kingdom to sell oil at favourable prices and for the superpower to provide security in exchange.

That equation was shaken by Washington’s failure to act when Iran struck oil installations in the kingdom in 2019. Concerns resurfaced in September, when Israel struck Doha, Qatar, in an attack it said targeted members of Palestinian group Hamas.

In the aftermath, Trump signed a defence pact with Qatar via executive order. Many analysts, diplomats and regional officials believe the Saudis will get something similar.

Saudi Arabia has sought a defence pact ratified by the US Congress in recent negotiations. But Washington has made that contingent on the kingdom normalising ties with Israel.

Riyadh has in turn linked that to a commitment from Israel’s government, the most right-wing in its history, to Palestinian statehood. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who agreed to a Trump-brokered ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza last month after two years of war, on Sunday reaffirmed his staunch opposition to Palestinian independence.

A Trump executive order on defence similar to the pact with Qatar would fall short of the defence agreement the Saudis have sought. But Alghashian said it would “be a step on the way, part of the process, not the end of the process.”

A Western diplomat based in the Gulf summed up the dynamic: “Trump wants normalisation and Saudi wants a full defence pact, but the circumstances don’t allow. In the end, both sides will likely get less than they want. That’s diplomacy.”

Dennis Ross, a former Middle East negotiator for Democratic and Republican administrations now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he expects an executive order that would call for the US and the Saudis “to immediately consult on what to do in response to the threat” while not committing Washington to actively come to the defence of Riyadh.

“That could run the gamut of providing a range of different assistance, replacing arms, deploying defensive missile batteries like THAAD or Patriot, deploying naval forces with a Marine unit – to actively taking part in the combat in an offensive not only defensive manner,” he said.

Deal key amid regional rivalry

Riyadh has also been pressing for deals in nuclear energy and artificial intelligence under its ambitious Vision 2030 plan to diversify its economy and strengthen its position relative to regional rivals.

Securing approval to acquire advanced computer chips would be critical to the kingdom’s plans to become a central node in global AI and to compete with the United Arab Emirates, which in June signed a US multibillion-dollar data centre deal that gave it access to high-end chips.

MBS also wants to strike an agreement with Washington on developing a Saudi civilian nuclear programme, part of his effort to diversify from oil.

Such a deal would unlock access to US nuclear technology and security guarantees and help Saudi Arabia level up with the UAE, which has its own programme, and traditional foe Iran.

But progress on a US deal has been difficult because the Saudis did not want to agree to a US stipulation that would rule out enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel – both potential paths to a bomb.

Ross said he expected an announcement of an agreement on nuclear energy, or at least a statement on progress towards one.