President Donald Trump revealed on Monday that the United States plans to resume selling advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, reviving a deal that the Biden administration paused.
“I will say that we will be doing that; we’ll be selling F-35s, yeah,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump said Saudi Arabia wants to procure them and they’ve “been a great ally,” with his comments coming just one day before his meeting at the White House with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia has requested to purchase as many as 48 F-35 fighter jets, a possible multibillion-dollar deal that has cleared a key Pentagon hurdle ahead of Salman’s visit, Reuters reported last month. During the crown prince’s visit with Trump on Tuesday, the two men are expected to sign several economic and defense deals, including on F-35s, the most advanced American fighter jet available for export, according to Bloomberg.
The latest development comes after the Biden administration in 2021 paused the sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia that were approved during the final months of Trump’s first term.
Biden officials paused billions worth of U.S. arms sales to the country at the time because of concerns it could be used to fuel the bloody conflict in neighboring Yemen.
Trump’s plans to renew arms sales to Saudi Arabia come as he pushes the country to sign on to the Abraham Accords, which seek to promote peace in the Middle East by normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and partnering countries.
The president has intensified pressure on Saudi Arabia, along with other counties, to sign on to the historic agreement in the wake of the Trump administration’s work to broker a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
The White House has framed the pause of hostilities in the region as an opportunity to pursue lasting peace in the Middle East. And Trump plans to speak to the crown prince about the matter during his trip to the White House on Tuesday.
“The Abraham Accords will be a part we’re going to be discussing,” Trump said last Friday. “I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly.”
Israel has urged Trump to condition the sale of the fighter jets on whether Saudi Arabia agrees to join the Abraham Accords, according to Axios.
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“We told the Trump administration that the supply of F-35s to Saudi Arabia needs to be subject to Saudi normalization with Israel,” an Israeli official told the outlet.
“Unlike the supply of F-35s to Turkey that we strongly oppose, we are less concerned about such a weapons system in Saudi Arabia if it’s part of a regional security cooperation as part of the Abraham Accords, like we have with the United Arab Emirates,” another Israeli official said.
