WASHINGTON — During the NATO summit in Ankara in early July, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will lift sanctions on Turkey and consider readmitting Ankara into the F-35 fighter jet program, defying bipartisan opposition reflected in two Congressional hearings, a Joint Resolution of Disapproval, and two letters signed by dozens of U.S. Representatives.
“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off, OK?” Trump said at a press conference alongside Erdogan. Asked whether Turkey would receive F-35s, Trump called it “certainly something we will consider.”
“Members of Congress from across the aisle are sounding the alarm — through two hearings, a Joint Resolution of Disapproval, and U.S. House letters to House leadership — and yet President Trump went to Ankara and crossed every Congressional red-line,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “Arming Ankara may score the President a few points with Erdogan, but at the cost of angering Congress and alienating voters heading into the mid-terms and the 2028 presidential election.”
Since Trump’s June 24 announcement of the proposed $700 million jet engine sale to Turkey and his administration’s review of Turkey’s reintegration into the F-35 program, Members of Congress have moved on multiple fronts to block it.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced H.J.Res.200, a Joint Resolution of Disapproval to block the proposed sale of General Electric F110-GE-129E/F engines for Turkey’s KAAN fighter aircraft program. Titus told POLITICO’s National Security Daily that Erdogan’s government “has made repeated threats of military action against NATO allies and other partner nations,” and that selling the engines would “embolden it to pursue those threats.”
Titus also led a letter to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urging leadership to be prepared to introduce a Joint Resolution of Disapproval under CAATSA Section 216(c)(3) — the same sanctions authority Trump said today he intends to lift — should the administration attempt to readmit Turkey to the F-35 program without a credible legal basis. The letter cited Turkey’s “aggressive posture toward Greece and Cyprus” and its “material support to Azerbaijan in its military campaigns against Armenia” as evidence Ankara has not behaved as a good-faith NATO partner.
