State Department clears a $24.3 billion F-35 package for Saudi Arabia

The State Department on Thursday notified Congress of a possible foreign military sale to Saudi Arabia of 48 F-35A Lightning II fighters and 49 Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines, 48 installed and one spare. The estimated cost is $24.3 billion. The notice is transmittal 26-69 from the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

The non-major defense equipment list includes AN/PYQ-10 simple key loaders, KIV-78 cryptographic appliques, secure communications and navigation gear, electronic-warfare database support, cartridge and propellant actuated devices, spares, training devices, engine component improvements, and maintenance. Prime contractors would be Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth, Texas, and Pratt & Whitney Military Engines in East Hartford, Connecticut.

The Department's standard language says the sale would improve the security of a major non-NATO ally and would not alter the military balance in the region. It also says Saudi Arabia can absorb the aircraft. Those sentences sit next to a separate fact: if the jets are built and delivered, Saudi Arabia would be only the second Middle East operator of the F-35, after Israel. About 20 countries fly the type today.

Congress now has 30 days to pass a resolution of disapproval. Informal consultation with the two relevant committees began in June. President Trump announced the sale last November on the eve of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to Washington. Riyadh had asked for the aircraft in early 2025 and had sought it for years as it rebuilt the air force around a threat from Iran.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that US intelligence agencies had warned China could acquire or steal F-35 technology if the jets went to the kingdom. The same reporting noted China's role in Saudi ballistic-missile work. The State Department went ahead the next day. The qualitative military edge doctrine, under which Washington keeps Israel's US-supplied kit more advanced than that of Arab buyers, is the other constraint. An F-35 in Saudi colours tests how that doctrine is now read.

The United Arab Emirates has also wanted the jet and does not have a notified package of this size. A two-squadron Saudi buy would put Riyadh ahead of Abu Dhabi in the fifth-generation queue. It would also add work to a Fort Worth line that already feeds the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps plus existing export customers. Delivery, if Congress stays silent, would take years. The war around Iran and Yemen is the political weather in which that silence will be measured.

Saudi Arabia is already the largest customer for US arms. This notice is not a signed contract. It is the point at which opponents in Congress have to find 30 days and a majority. Supporters will argue that a partner under Houthi and Iranian fire should not be left on fourth-generation aircraft. Opponents will argue that stealth source code and China are a bad pair. The text of 26-69 does not resolve that argument. It only starts the clock.