{"id":213962,"date":"2025-06-25T19:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/213962\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T19:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:43:09","slug":"the-uk-is-buying-f-35-fighter-jets-capable-of-carrying-nuclear-weapons-but-theyll-need-trumps-approval-before-dropping-bombs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/213962\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK is buying F-35 fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons\u2014but they’ll need Trump’s approval before dropping bombs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Kingdom will buy 12 U.S.-made F-35A fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear bombs and will join\u00a0NATO\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0shared airborne nuclear mission, in a major expansion of its nuclear deterrent,\u00a0Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a>\u00a0announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The government called it \u201cthe biggest strengthening of the U.K.\u2019s nuclear posture in a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer made the announcement while attending a NATO summit in the Netherlands. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte welcomed the decision, calling it \u201cyet another robust British contribution to NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.K. phased out air-dropped atomic weapons in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Its nuclear arsenal now consists of submarine-based missiles.<\/p>\n

Only three NATO members \u2013 the U.S., Britain and France \u2013 are nuclear powers, while seven nations contribute to the alliance\u2019s nuclear mission by contributing jets that can carry either conventional or weapons or American B61 bombs stockpiled in Europe.<\/p>\n

The use of nuclear weapons by the U.K. as part of the mission would require the authorization of NATO\u2019s nuclear planning group as well as the U.S. president and British prime minister.<\/p>\n

Marion Messmer, from the international security program at the Chatham House think tank, said the government had avoided saying whether U.S. nuclear weapons would be based on British soil, a move that would likely be controversial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.K. doesn\u2019t have any nuclear weapons itself that could be deployed via this aircraft,\u201d Messmer said. \u201cOther states in NATO that participate in this mission also host U.S. nuclear weapons on their territory \u2013 these weapons remain entirely under U.S. control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer also announced that the U.K. will provide 350 air defense missiles to Ukraine, funded by 70 million pounds ($95 million) raised from interest on seized Russian assets.<\/p>\n

The announcements come as the U.K. and other NATO members pledge to\u00a0increase spending on security<\/a>\u00a0to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035. The total includes 3.5% on defense and another 1.5% on broader security and resilience efforts.<\/p>\n

The U.K. currently spends 2.3% of national income on defense and says that will rise to 2.6% by 2027.<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500<\/strong>, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in America.\u00a0Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom will buy 12 U.S.-made F-35A fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear bombs and will join\u00a0NATO\u2019s\u00a0shared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,32,393,15060,4884,11025,2821,1144,1767,12617,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-213962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-f-35","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-jets","15":"tag-nato","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-nuclear","18":"tag-nuclear-energy","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114745717869471989","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}