State Department clears a $24.3 billion F-35A sale to Saudi Arabia

The U.S. State Department notified Congress on 17 September of a proposed Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia of 48 F-35A Lightning II fighters and 49 Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines, at an estimated value of $24.3 billion. Forty-eight engines would be fitted to the aircraft. One would be a spare. The package also covers secure communications, cryptographic devices, precision navigation, electronic warfare gear, training, spare parts and logistics.

Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney Military Engines are the principal contractors. No offset deal has been set. The department said the sale would not require extra U.S. personnel in the kingdom and that Saudi forces could absorb the aircraft.

Congress now has a 30-day window to block the sale. That clock is the live political fact. The State Department can clear a deal. It cannot close it.

Why this jet, and why this year

Saudi Arabia has asked for the F-35 since 2017. The Biden administration kept the file closed. President Donald Trump said in November 2025 that Washington intended to sell the aircraft to Riyadh and called the kingdom a great ally. Thursday’s notice is the paperwork that follows that sentence.

Israel has flown the F-35 since 2016 and remains the only operator in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates pursued a similar package and ran into the same objections that now sit on the Saudi file: the risk that sensitive systems leak to China, and the risk that a Gulf air force narrows Israel’s qualitative military edge. The State Department said the Saudi sale would not alter the regional military balance and would have no adverse impact on U.S. defence. That is the formal line. It is also the line members of Congress who oppose the deal will test.

Saudi communications networks still include Chinese equipment, including Huawei kit. U.S. intelligence assessments have looked at whether Riyadh can wall off F-35 facilities and strip Chinese gear from the relevant networks. Those safeguards, if they exist on paper, will be the substance of the 30-day fight.

The war next door

The notice arrived in the same week that Houthi media claimed to have downed a Saudi F-15 over Marib and released footage of wreckage with Saudi markings. The Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni forces have traded fire across the border. The U.N. migration agency said 112,000 people were displaced inside Yemen in two weeks. A fifth-generation fighter will not land in Riyadh this month. Delivery, if Congress allows the sale, is years away. The political signal is immediate. Washington is offering Riyadh the aircraft it has wanted for nine years while the Red Sea and the Saudi southern border are under pressure and while an Iran war is still running.

The department’s own language calls Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally whose security serves U.S. aims in the Gulf. It also says the jets would improve interoperability with U.S. and NATO forces. Interoperability is a technical word for flying and sharing data on the same network. That is precisely what critics say must not be exposed to a partner that buys Chinese telecoms gear.

If the sale survives Congress, Saudi Arabia joins a club of about 20 F-35 operators and becomes the first Arab air force in it. The UAE file stays in the drawer. Israel remains the only current Middle East user. The 30 days will decide whether that map changes on paper. The aircraft themselves will not arrive until the war that made the sale feel urgent has already written its own next chapter.