(JNS) Over the past week, President Donald Trump has reopened a defense dispute Washington appeared to have settled seven years ago: whether Turkey, a NATO ally expelled from the F-35 program over its purchase of a Russian S-400 air-defense system, can regain access to the aircraft.
The reversal is significant as Turkey was not simply a prospective customer. Before its removal in 2019, Ankara was an F-35 program partner, planned to acquire 100 aircraft, and manufactured more than 900 components for the jet. The Pentagon moved to remove Turkey after Ankara took delivery of the S-400 system, arguing that operating it near the F-35 could expose sensitive information about the aircraft’s stealth capabilities. Turkey lost its planned aircraft and billions of dollars in projected industrial work.
Trump is now signaling that the rupture may no longer be permanent. At the NATO summit in Ankara on...
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