Donald Trump has just offered Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a stealth fighter jet that Israel doesn’t want him to have, Congress hasn’t cleared him to sell, and Gulf capitals are already using it as leverage against Washington itself.
A Deal Three Fronts Wide
Loyalty Over Jerusalem, Leverage Over Moscow
The timing is jarring. Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated into open hostility over the past year. Erdoğan has likened Netanyahu to Hitler, a Turkish court has moved to indict Netanyahu and dozens of Israeli officials over the interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla, and Ankara has suspended trade with Israel entirely. Netanyahu has returned fire, branding Erdoğan an “antisemitic dictator” who represses Kurds and shelters Hamas leadership. Yet Trump has conspicuously declined to referee this feud, calling Erdoğan “a very good friend of mine” even as reporters pressed him on the prospect of arming a country that is, by Israeli accounts, becoming a rival center of regional power.
That reflects a calculation that has little to do with Jerusalem and everything to do with the architecture of NATO. Trump arrived in Ankara midway through a broader campaign to reshape the alliance around burden-sharing rather than sentiment, pushing a “NATO 3.0” vision in which European members absorb more of their own defense costs while feuding publicly with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and eyeing Greenland. Turkey, NATO’s second-largest standing army and a state that has stayed nominally inside the Western security umbrella despite deep economic and military ties to Moscow, is precisely the kind of ally this framework is designed to reward: one that pays its way and does what Washington asks, rather than one that simply agrees with Washington’s values. Trump has praised Turkey’s support during the recent Iran war as proof of that loyalty.
Handing Erdoğan a marquee weapons platform is also a hedge against Ankara drifting further toward its own defense-industrial alternatives, including the S-400 relationship with Moscow that started this entire dispute and the homegrown KAAN fighter program that Turkey has been developing as an F-35 substitute. Keeping Turkey inside the American supply chain is, in this reading, cheaper than losing it to Russian or indigenous alternatives.
The Statute Trump Can’t Wave Away
The politics may favor Trump; the law does not. CAATSA sanctions carry a presidential waiver provision tied to national-security findings, which is why lifting them is comparatively straightforward. The F-35 ban is a different animal. It was separately codified in Section 1245 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which bars the transfer of F-35 aircraft, parts, or technical data to Turkey unless the Secretaries of State and Defense certify in writing — 90 days in advance — that Turkey no longer possesses the S-400 system and has given credible assurance it will not reacquire one. Unlike CAATSA, that provision contains no waiver.
That leaves Trump with unattractive options: persuade Turkey to actually dismantle or transfer its S-400 batteries to a third country, a move reportedly already under discussion; ask a divided Congress to amend or repeal Section 1245 outright; or attempt a narrow legal reinterpretation of what “possession” means, an approach that would invite immediate litigation and congressional backlash. None of these is trivial. Ten House members, led by Republican Mike Lawler and Democrat Brad Sherman, have already urged the White House to preserve the ban, citing Erdoğan’s posture toward American allies. Senator John Cornyn has publicly voiced hope that Trump’s announcement proves premature. Even Trump allies like Lindsey Graham have conceded that Turkey’s rupture with Israel will complicate the vote count. In other words, Trump can promise Erdoğan a plane; only Congress and the Pentagon’s certifying authority can actually deliver one.
A Gulf Chessboard Reacts
The Ankara announcement does not land in a vacuum; it lands in the middle of a Gulf arms storm that Washington is already struggling to weather. Saudi Arabia, cleared in principle for its own F-35 purchase, has spent recent months simultaneously courting Turkey’s KAAN fighter program, which offers the industrial participation and technology transfer that Riyadh’s Vision 2030 localization targets demand and that American export terms typically withhold. Current and former US officials have told reporters that this Saudi hedging is unsettling an administration that wants to remain the kingdom’s primary arms supplier, and Washington has signaled it can tolerate Saudi involvement in KAAN only so long as Riyadh still buys the F-35. A parallel deal with the UAE, meanwhile, remains stalled over the country’s use of Chinese telecommunications infrastructure.
A rehabilitated Turkey changes the leverage calculus for every Gulf capital watching from the sidelines. If Ankara can talk its way back into the world’s most exclusive fighter program despite an active Russian air-defense system on its soil, Gulf states have every incentive to treat Washington’s export conditions as negotiable rather than fixed. This would clear the way for them to keep shopping Ankara, Beijing, and Moscow as alternatives whenever American terms feel too restrictive. Israel’s insistence on preserving its qualitative military edge already threads through both the Turkey and the Saudi files; a concession in one arena will be read, fairly or not, as a precedent in the other.
What Comes Next Is Bigger Than a Sale
The real story in Ankara isn’t whether Turkey eventually receives F-35s. It is a process that would take years even under the friendliest possible legal reading. It’s what the announcement itself reveals about the direction of American security policy: a presidency increasingly willing to treat congressionally mandated arms controls as opening offers rather than binding constraints, and allies increasingly willing to test that theory in public. If Trump succeeds in engineering Turkey’s return through some combination of S-400 disposal and congressional maneuvering, he will have established that loyalty during a crisis can purchase exemption from statutes written explicitly to prevent it. He would be setting a precedent that Gulf and European capitals alike will file away for their own future negotiations. If he fails, and Congress holds the line, Ankara’s disappointment will only sharpen its incentive to diversify toward KAAN, Russian systems, or whichever supplier asks fewer questions. Either outcome accelerates the same trend: a Middle Eastern security architecture where American weapons remain the prize everyone wants, but American conditions are no longer the ones anyone assumes will hold.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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