The U.S. President Donald Trump announced that his administration is actively reviewing a potential deal to supply Saudi Arabia with advanced F-35 fighter jets.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump confirmed the kingdom’s keen interest in the stealth aircraft, which are manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

“They wanna buy a lot of jets,” Trump stated. “They’ve asked me to look at it. They want to buy a lot of ’35s,’ but they want to buy actually more than that, fighter jets.”

The potential arms sale is set against the backdrop of the Crown Prince's upcoming visit to Washington, where he and Trump are expected to sign a series of economic and defense agreements. The meeting is seen as a key moment to deepen the strategic partnership between the two nations amid ongoing regional tensions.

Trump emphasized the importance of the relationship, commenting, “It’s more than a meeting, we’re honoring” Saudi Arabia. He also expressed optimism that Riyadh might eventually join the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations.

However, this prospect faces significant new hurdles. Saudi Arabia has consistently maintained that any normalization of ties with Israel is contingent on a credible and irreversible path to an independent Palestinian state.

Prior to the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, diplomatic efforts had been underway, with Riyadh seeking a U.S. security pact as part of a broader normalization framework. But the devastating conflict in Gaza—described by UN experts and human rights groups as a genocide—has triggered widespread global outrage and dramatically shifted the diplomatic landscape across the Middle East.

As a result, analysts now view the chances of near-term Saudi-Israeli normalization as increasingly remote, complicating the strategic calculations that will underpin the high-level talks in Washington. (ILKHA)