Aboard Air Force One on Monday 27 July 2026, Donald Trump was dismissive of Israel's objection to selling F-35s to Türkiye. It did not take him long.
"Nobody tells me what we should be selling," the president said, calling Türkiye a tremendous ally of his.
He went further, in the register he reserves for people he likes. Türkiye had done a very good job in the region, Syria included. As for the friction with Israel, he acknowledged it and set it aside. Ankara was no great fan of Israel, he said, nor of "Bibi," but "they've been great for me."
That is a president dismissing a visiting prime minister's objection in public, the day before the visit. Benjamin Netanyahu lands in Washington on Tuesday 28 July 2026.
What Netanyahu had asked for
The objection Trump was waving away had been made plainly. Speaking to Fox News earlier in July 2026, Netanyahu called Türkiye "a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood" and said: "I don't think they should be given F-35s or engines."
The second half of that sentence is a separate ask, because an F-35 arrives with its own engines. What Ankara has long wanted on top of the aircraft are the American F110s that power KAAN, Türkiye's own fifth-generation fighter, which has flown on them since it first took off in February 2024.
On those, Netanyahu was already too late. A resolution to block the F110 sale was filed in Congress on 2 July 2026 and never left committee. When the 15-day review window shut on 9 July, the engines cleared without anyone voting on them.
What the president did not mention
Five days before Trump spoke, his own State Department told Congress something his remarks did not acknowledge.
In a letter dated 22 July 2026, the department wrote that American policy had not changed and that Türkiye has not met the legal conditions for returning to the program. It listed them. Ankara must give up the S-400 air-defense system it bought from Russia. It must give up the equipment that came with it. It must guarantee that it will never acquire another. And it must satisfy the certification requirements written into US law.
Türkiye was removed from the F-35 program in July 2019 over that purchase, having been one of the partner nations that helped build the aircraft. Its flag is still painted on the fuselage of display models.
Ankara has not responded to the letter.
The gap this leaves
Nothing Trump said on Monday changes any of those conditions. A president can want a sale. The S-400 requirement and the certification sit in statute, and clearing them takes Turkish compliance, a waiver, or a change in the law.
Congress, for what it is worth, has been warmer than the law it wrote. After a bipartisan delegation met Turkish officials at the Ankara summit this month, Representative Mike Turner said the group came away encouraged, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who helped write the legislation that pushed Türkiye out, was counted among those who share the view. No waiver has been signed.
Ankara's position, as Hulusi Akar, who chairs Türkiye's parliamentary defense committee, put it to reporters in Washington on 17 July 2026, is that the S-400 question will be resolved one way or another and the F-35 process will follow. He did not say how.
So the file now holds two true statements that point in opposite directions. The State Department says Türkiye does not qualify. The president says nobody tells him what to sell. Tuesday's meeting will not settle which one governs, because the answer is written somewhere neither man was standing.