Accord ‘should dispel doubts over F-35 sale’

I personally would have no problem with it. I would have no problem in selling them [the UAE] the F-35.”

Donald Trump | In an interview on Fox News

US President Donald Trump said yesterday he would have “no problem” selling advanced F-35 jets to the UAE, as a top UAE minister reiterated that the request for the US warplanes had been on the table since before the normalisation deal with Israel.

“I personally would have no problem with it,” Trump said on Fox News. “I would have no problem in selling them the F-35.” He added that the sale of the Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 warplanes would mean “tremendous jobs at home.”

Separately, Dr Anwar Gargash, UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, told an online briefing yesterday that the UAE’s deal to normalise relations with Israel should sweep away any reservations about its desire to purchase the jets.

“If there is any grain of doubt as to why the UAE should get the F-35, I think the Abraham Accord should deal with that grain of doubt,” Dr Gargash said. “The UAE seeks like any country that takes its military seriously, to modernise its military, always, so our request for the F-35 and other systems pre-dates this agreement,” he said.

The UAE’s existing F-16 jets are now almost two decades old and it is time to renew them, he added.

Legitimate requests

Israel has publicly opposed the sale, saying it would compromise its weapons edge in the region. In an earlier interview with the Atlantic Council, Dr Gargash had said: “We have legitimate requests that are there. We ought to get them... the whole idea of a state of belligerency or war with Israel no longer exists.”

The US has earlier sold the F-35 to countries such as South Korea, Japan and Israel. But a typical F-35 sale takes years to negotiate and deliver — Poland, the most recent F-35 customer, purchased 32 of the jets in January, but will not receive its first delivery until 2024.