Donald Trump arrives in Ankara this week for a NATO summit with a shocking geopolitical gamble in his briefcase. He is prepared to tell Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the United States is ready to restore Turkey’s access to the F-35 stealth fighter program. This move reverses a bitter six-year exile that began when Ankara purchased a Russian missile system. By offering to unlock both the elite stealth jets and critical jet engines for Turkey’s domestic fighter program, Trump intends to force Ankara back into the Western security orbit. The decision bypasses years of statecraft and sets up an explosive battle with Congress, Israel, and the Pentagon.
It is a high-stakes transaction that treats international defense alliances like real estate negotiations.
The Broken Deal That Remade the Mediterranean
To understand why this development is shaking foreign ministries from Athens to Tel Aviv, one has to look back to 2019. Turkey was not just a customer for the F-35 Lightning II; it was a co-developer. Turkish factories manufactured hundreds of core components, including fuselage pieces and display systems. When Erdogan ignored explicit warnings and accepted delivery of the Russian S-400 air defense battery, Washington reacted with uncharacteristic bureaucratic speed. The Pentagon immediately expelled Turkey from the program. The concern was simple and absolute. If Turkey operated both the S-400 radar and the F-35, Russian technicians could theoretically harvest data on the jet's stealth vulnerabilities.
The subsequent years saw a freeze. Washington locked up the F-35s that Turkey had already purchased, storing them in hangars at Luke Air Force Base. Congress codified the ban, legally forbidding any delivery of the stealth platform until Turkey entirely removed the Russian military hardware from its soil. Erdogan refused to budge. Instead, Turkey turned its energy inward, pumping billions into its own aerospace industry to build a sovereign fifth-generation fighter called the Kaan.
The strategy worked, but only to a point. The Kaan prototypes flew, but they relied on American-made General Electric F110 engines. Turkey needed dozens more of those engines to build a functional fleet, and those engine shipments required congressional sign-off. This created the bottleneck that Trump now plans to shatter.
The Transactional Foreign Policy of a Second Term
Trump has never viewed international agreements as sacred texts. He views them as fluid arrangements governed by personal chemistry and leverage. Behind closed doors, administration officials acknowledge that Trump believes the original expulsion of Turkey—which his own first administration executed—has outlived its diplomatic utility. In his view, isolating Turkey did not break Erdogan's resolve; it merely drove him closer to Moscow and Beijing.
By offering to restore access to the F-35 and clear the logjam on the F110 engines, Trump is attempting a grand bargain. The terms are characteristically bold. Washington gives Erdogan the military prestige he craves, and in return, Turkey must scale back its defense integration with Russia and realign its regional intelligence sharing with the West.
Former diplomats warn that this approach overestimates personal diplomacy. Erdogan is a master of playing East against West. He has successfully extracted concessions from NATO before, notably holding up the entry of Sweden and Finland to secure F-16 upgrades from the previous American administration. Seeing the White House willing to blink on the F-35 will only signal to Ankara that stubbornness pays off.
The Furious Backlash from Israel and Athens
The loudest alarms are ringing in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare public intervention on American television, openly urging Trump to abandon the plan. Israel relies on its own fleet of F-35s to maintain an absolute qualitative military edge across the region. The prospect of an increasingly hostile, Islamist-leaning government in Ankara obtaining the same tier of stealth technology threatens that calculation. Turkey's vociferous support for regional militant groups and its bitter diplomatic breaks with Israel make the sale an existential issue for the Israeli defense establishment.
Greece is watching with equal alarm. For decades, the balance of power in the Aegean Sea has rested on a careful equilibrium. If Turkey receives the F-35 alongside its massive fleet of upgraded F-16s, the aerial balance shifts instantly. Greek officials have quietly reminded Washington that Turkish fighter jets routinely violate Greek airspace, and introducing stealth capabilities into those flashpoints could lead to a catastrophic miscalculation.
The Coming Insurgency on Capitol Hill
Even if Trump tells Erdogan the jets are available, the physical delivery of an F-35 requires a mountain of paperwork that runs straight through the U.S. Congress. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is already sharpening its knives. Representatives Mike Lawler and Brad Sherman have organized a fierce legislative pushback, reminding the White House that federal law explicitly bars these transfers unless the executive branch certifies that the Russian S-400 system is completely gone.
The legal mechanisms are rigid. The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, imposes mandatory penalties on nations that engage in significant transactions with the Russian defense sector. Trump’s team is exploring executive loopholes, including a proposal to have Turkey lease the S-400 systems to a neutral third country or store them under lock and key monitored by American observers.
Congressional staff indicate that such compromises will not pass muster on the Hill. Lawmakers are prepared to introduce joint resolutions of disapproval to block both the F-35 restoration and the sale of General Electric engines for Turkey's Kaan project. It sets up a constitutional showdown over who controls American arms exports.
Engineering Truths and the Pentagon Dilemma
Inside the Pentagon, career defense officials are horrified by the technical implications. Reintegrating Turkey into the F-35 supply chain is not as simple as signing a contract. When Turkey was expelled, Lockheed Martin spent two years and hundreds of millions of dollars shifting part production to alternative suppliers in the United States and Europe. Undoing that work disrupts a highly synchronized global manufacturing network.
Furthermore, the cyber security concerns that triggered the 2019 ban have evolved. The S-400 radars have spent years operating inside Turkey, mapping local airspace and interacting with Turkish military networks. Defense engineers argue that the risk of Russian intelligence accessing the F-35’s software architecture remains unacceptably high, regardless of what political promises Erdogan makes to Trump.
The White House believes that the geopolitical necessity of locking Turkey into the Western alliance during a period of intense global conflict outweighs these technical anxieties. They argue that an isolated Turkey building advanced fighters with Pakistan or buying jets from China is far more dangerous to long-term American security than a compromised F-35 network.
Erdogan holds the cards he wants. He has a domestic fighter jet that needs American powerplants, and he has a U.S. President who loves a dramatic deal. The upcoming meetings in Ankara will determine whether this transactional gamble rebuilds the southern flank of NATO or permanently fractures the trust of America's closest allies in the region.
