Trump proposes F-35 sale to Turkey despite legal barrier

Lawmakers tie any F-35 return to S-400 resolution

Trump made the comments Tuesday alongside Erdogan at the presidential complex in the Turkish capital, where he landed for a summit of NATO leaders. “We have a better relationship with Turkey, and Turkey has been in many ways much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal,” Trump said when asked by reporters about the F-35 program. “So yeah, it’s something certainly we’d consider. It’s a great plane. It’s the best, currently the best plane by far, and certainly something we will consider.”

The U.S. and Turkey have been locked in a diplomatic impasse over weapons sales since Erdogan approved Turkey’s import of the Russian S-400 air defense system in 2017. The move triggered American sanctions, and the first Trump administration removed Turkey from the multinational F-35 program in response. U.S. officials have expressed concern that the Russian system could gather data about the F-35, including its radar signature, and send it to Moscow. The integration of the Russian system into NATO air defenses, along with the potential presence of Russian personnel, also raised concerns among Western defense officials.

In 2020, Congress passed a law explicitly barring the U.S. from allowing Turkey back into the F-35 program until Turkey agrees to remove all S-400 systems and commits to never acquiring them or other Russian systems that could compromise the jet. On Tuesday, Trump said he wanted to remove the sanctions and would make a decision about selling F-35s to Turkey, though such a move would require approval from a Congress that remains opposed.

“I hope this is wrong,” Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, posted on social media in response to reports on the proposal.

U.S. and Turkish officials have in recent years discussed potential workarounds, including sending the S-400 to Ukraine or moving it to an American-controlled secure site. None of those solutions has materialized.

Lawmakers who traveled to Ankara for the NATO summit said they would welcome Turkey rejoining the F-35 program if the S-400 issue is resolved first. “It would be very good news to be able to see Turkey back into that program and see the S-400 dealt with in a way that doesn’t give Russia the ability to use the S-400 to figure out how we’re building the F-35,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said, “We know it will not happen until the issue of the air defense system, the S-400, has been resolved.”

U.S. and regional officials familiar with the diplomacy said in the days leading up to the summit that there had been no progress in breaking the impasse.

Trump cited his close relationship with Erdogan in saying the U.S. was ready to move ahead. “We’re going to be taking the sanctions off. It’s time to do that. We don’t want to sanction friends,” he said. The White House declined to clarify the comments further. A spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Turkey has the second-largest fleet of F-16 jet fighters in the world after the U.S. and has factories for U.S. defense firms like General Electric. Its expulsion from the F-35 program cost the country and its defense firms billions of dollars in contracts. Even if sanctions were removed, a major Turkish defense industry executive said it is unlikely that Turkey would resume its role as a full-fledged member of the program. “I think we are way behind, because years already passed,” said Mehmet Akif Nacar, CEO of Havelsan, one of Turkey’s most prominent defense firms, whose company had been involved in developing an Automatic Logistic Information System for the F-35 project. “There is always hope,” he said.

The tension around American weapons sales to Turkey is a major subplot of this year’s NATO summit, at which European allies are working to adapt to Trump’s criticism of the alliance and the drawdown of U.S. military commitments to Europe. The U.S. and some European countries have turned to Turkey as a key weapons supplier that has played an important role in arming Ukraine, but the tension in the U.S.-Turkey relationship remains a major obstacle to deepening defense ties.