US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States will sell F-35 fighter jets to India, which would join the elite club of countries with the state-of-the-art stealth planes.
“Starting this year, we’ll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We’re also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters,” Trump told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi, only the fourth world leader to visit the White House since Trump’s return, described the fellow nationalist as a friend and told him he was adopting a take on his “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Trump said that he found a “special bond” with Modi and India and, in an uncharacteristic if ironic show of humility, complimented Modi as being a “much tougher negotiator” than he is.
Successive US administrations have seen India as a key partner with like-minded interests in the face of a rising China, and Trump announced that the new administration was ready to sell one of the top US military prizes — F-35s.
India would join an elite club of countries that include NATO allies, Israel and Japan that would be allowed to buy the F-35, which can operate without detection at supersonic speeds.
Continuing a push from his predecessor Joe Biden, Trump said that the two countries also planned investment in ports, railways and underseas cable to “build one of the greatest trade routes in all of history,” running from India to Israel to Europe and beyond.