{"id":8337,"date":"2026-07-19T12:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/8337\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:55:08","slug":"can-turkey-finally-be-trusted-with-americas-premier-fighter-jet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/8337\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Turkey finally be trusted with America\u2019s premier fighter jet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump<\/a> made a lot of waves at this year\u2019s NATO<\/a> summit in Ankara. And one of the biggest was when Trump suggested he might be willing to lift the six-year-old ban on sales of American F-35 stealth fighter jets to the meeting\u2019s host country, Turkey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turkey used to be a partner in building the F-35 as a member of an international consortium designed to ensure healthy sales of the\u00a0Lockheed Martin<\/a>\u00a0planes to worthy allies.<\/p>\n

That was before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/a> decided to acquire Russia\u2019s<\/a> most advanced air defense system, the S-400, which is not only incompatible with NATO systems but could also compromise the F-35\u2019s highly classified radar-evading technology.<\/p>\n

Concerns that operating the S-400 alongside the F-35 could allow the Russian system to gather data about the plane, including its radar signature, and transmit that to Moscow, prompted the first Trump administration<\/a> to boot Turkey from the program.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit in Turkey on July 7. (Alex Brandon\/AP Images)<\/p>\n

In 2020, Congress codified the ban, unless and until Turkey got rid of its S-400s, and committed never to buy Russian systems in the future.
And that\u2019s where things stood, until, in Trump\u2019s words, Erdogan \u201crolled out the red carpet,\u201d and feted Trump upon his arrival for the NATO summit<\/a> by naming a newly renovated terminal at a Turkish air base in his honor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are great friends. The president has done an incredible job,\u201d Trump said at a meeting with Erdogan\u00a0at his presidential complex<\/a>. \u201cJust landing at the airport, to see such a beautiful airport, and to have a building named after me \u2026 That was very nice. The airport is absolutely beautiful. The roads coming in were brand new and beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump was feeling loved, and he gushed about his \u201cvery special relationship\u201d with Erdogan and the \u201cgood chemistry\u201d he\u2019s had with him \u201cright from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, when a reporter asked, \u201cAre you going to sell F-35s to Turkey?\u201d Trump was quick to say he\u2019s considering it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t we do that? We have a better relationship with Turkey and Turkey\u2019s been, in many ways, much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal,\u201d Trump said, \u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s something certainly we\u2019d consider.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about the Russian missile defense systems?\u201d a reporter followed up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no concerns about anything having to do with Turkey,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI would say the relationship with Turkey right now is better, probably, than it\u2019s ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Capitol Hill concerns<\/p>\n

Erdogan, who has been pleading for the state-of-the-art jets for years, was left with the impression that the end of the ban was a done deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump and myself have reached an agreement,\u201d he said at a later\u00a0news conference<\/a>. \u201cGod willing, once F-35s are delivered to Turkey, the whole world will say that America kept its promise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"F-35F-35 Lightning II. (Courtesy of lockheedmartin.com)<\/p>\n

At his post-summit news conference the next day, Trump hedged a bit: \u201cI haven\u2019t totally made up my mind, but my inclination is to say, \u2018Look, he\u2019s done everything. He\u2019s helped us in so many different ways.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u201cinclination\u201d to reward Erdogan for his loyalty to Trump has teed up a confrontation with Congress<\/a>, including members of his own party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope this is wrong,\u201d Sen.\u00a0John Cornyn (R-TX)\u00a0posted on X<\/a>,\u00a0along with a long, artificially-generated list of U.S. legal restrictions and sanctions that would have to be waived before F-35s could be provided to Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re going to find this is one issue where Democrats and Republicans agree on, no F-35s to Turkey<\/a> until they get rid of the Russian systems in their military repertoire,\u201d Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) said in an appearance\u00a0on CNN. \u201cAs long as Turkey has bought these weapons systems, anti-missile defense systems from Russia, we should not be allowing them to purchase F-35s, our most advanced fighter jets \u2026 That could put American security at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen<\/a> (D-NH) told reporters that Turkey\u2019s return to the F-35 program would be good for both countries, but only if the security threat posed by the S-400 can be mitigated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have questions to answer with respect to what\u2019s being proposed, and we haven\u2019t gotten those answers,\u201d Shaheen said, according to Turkey\u2019s state-run\u00a0Anadolu\u00a0news agency. \u201cSo, we will wait and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker laid out the Trump administration\u2019s perspective on potential F-35 sales to Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very clear what American law requires. And you would expect that the United States of America doesn\u2019t want our most sophisticated fighter jet to be tested against Russia\u2019s air defense system,\u201d Whitaker said on CNN\u2019s\u00a0State of the Union program. \u201cI think what President Trump is doing is negotiating the deal with President Erdogan because that\u2019s the right thing to do, is to accomplish the goal of that law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former supreme NATO commander,\u00a0argues that technology has advanced in the last decade to the point where there may be a way around the problem without Turkey having to give up its S-400s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere very well may be a technical way, using some kind of firewall process, to keep the Russian S-400 air defense very separated from the Joint Strike Fighter F-35,\u201d Stavridis said. \u201cIf we found a technical solution to separate those two, I would be in favor of making this sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no one more adamantly opposed to the sale than America\u2019s ally in the Iran war, Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would destroy the power balance<\/a> in the Middle East, because Turkey, I think, has aggressive aspirations,\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>\u00a0told\u00a0CNN\u2019s Dana Bash, after he heard Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotwithstanding the personal friendship that President Trump has with Erdogan, it doesn\u2019t make Turkey a friendly state to the United States,\u201d Netanyahu continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a regime that\u2019s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States.\u00a0He harbors Hamas, the Hamas terrorists. He supports them. He finances them. He\u2019s thrown his opponents in jail, all of them. He throws more journalists in jail than anyone can understand. So, he\u2019s not exactly a model ally of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has been at odds with Netanyahu lately, and his response was to criticize the leader of the Jewish state while crediting himself with keeping Turkey from going to war with Israel on Iran\u2019s side, as if that was a real possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cBibi said rough things about Turkey and Erdogan, and I spoke to him,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe could have gone into the war because he doesn\u2019t like Israel much. And he doesn\u2019t like Bibi much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkey is very strong. They have a lot of our best equipment \u2026\u00a0\u00a0If it weren\u2019t for me, he would have gone in. And he would have been on the other side,\u201d the president continued.<\/p>\n

Even if the security concerns are resolved, either with a technical fix or by shipping the S-400 systems to Ukraine<\/a> \u2014 which is desperately in need of additional air defenses \u2014 it\u2019s not likely Turkey would get F-35s anytime soon.<\/p>\n

TRUMP SAYS IRAN CEASEFIRE IS \u2018OVER\u2019: THEY\u2019RE SCUM. THEY\u2019RE SICK PEOPLE\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI saw in Fort Worth these planes rolling off the lines, and they\u2019re already assigned to other countries, including the United States,\u201d Whitaker told CNN. \u201cSo, I think it\u2019s going to be a long-term process, but we need to make sure that the deal is in the American people\u2019s interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s, I think, a deal that can happen,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre<\/a>) is the\u00a0Washington\u00a0Examiner\u2019s\u00a0senior writer on national security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump made a lot of waves at this year\u2019s NATO summit in Ankara. And one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[60,57,290,4719,9,7,278,20,466,777],"class_list":["post-8337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defense","tag-donald-trump","tag-f-35","tag-magazine-washington-briefing","tag-national-security","tag-nato","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-russia","tag-turkey","tag-washington-d-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}