{"id":414377,"date":"2026-07-27T21:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T21:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414377\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T21:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T21:39:12","slug":"trump-on-israel-opposing-f-35s-to-turkey-nobody-tells-me-what-we-should-be-selling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414377\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump on Israel opposing F-35s to Turkey: ‘Nobody tells me what we should be selling’"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 US President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s public cautioning against Washington selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, praising the NATO ally one day before he is set to meet Netanyahu at the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody tells me what we should be selling,\u201d Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. \u201cTurkey has been a tremendous ally for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkish-Israeli relations collapsed following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and the war in Gaza, and Israeli officials, including the prime minister, have lately spoken of Ankara as a regional adversary. Speaking to Fox News<\/a> earlier this month, Netanyahu called Turkey \u201ca regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants \u2018Death to America.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they should be given F-35s or engines for their fighter jets,\u201d he insisted at the time.<\/p>\n

On Air Force One, Trump nodded to the tensions between Jerusalem and Ankara before lavishing more praise on Turkey. He has previously spoken highly of his relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTurkey\u2019s not a big fan of Israel, not a great fan of Bibi. But they\u2019ve been great for me,\u201d he added, offering a window into how he makes foreign policy decisions.<\/p>\n

He called Turkey a \u201cvery powerful country,\u201d and said it had a \u201ctremendous military, very big military, very powerful, has a lot of great equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPresident Donald Trump, left, shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he arrives for the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 7, 2026. (Osmancan G\u00fcrdo\u011fan, Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

Trump had indicated earlier this month that he would approve the F-35 sale, but that hit a snag: The State Department informed Congress last week that Ankara still does not qualify for the purchase.<\/p>\n

Turkey joined a multinational program to purchase F-35 fighter jets from the United States, but was removed from it in 2020 over its purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems.<\/p>\n

The S-400 purchase initiated US sanctions of Turkey under the Countering America\u2019s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. While Trump announced in his July 7 meeting with Erdogan that he would be lifting those sanctions, the State Department letter indicated that had yet to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur policy regarding Turkey\u2019s purchase of F-35s remains unchanged and fully consistent,\u201d read a State Department letter to a congressman who had inquired about the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis includes resolving the S-400 issue by Turkey no longer possessing the system or associated equipment, providing assurances against its future acquisition, and meeting the other statutory certification requirements,\u201d the letter continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkey has not yet met these conditions,\u201d it added, while not ruling out the possibility that Ankara could later meet them.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 US President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s public cautioning against Washington selling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[124878,536,165794,165791,143,145,144,165795,99060,165793,165792],"class_list":["post-414377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-f-35","tag-israel-turkey-relations","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-us-foreign-policy","tag-us-state-department","tag-us-turkey-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}