Can Turkey, a US ally and NATO member, finally be trusted with America’s premier fighter jet?

President Donald Trump made a lot of waves at this year’s NATO summit in Ankara. And one of the biggest was when Trump suggested he might be willing to lift the six-year-old ban on sales of American F-35 stealth fighter jets to the meeting’s host country, Turkey.Turkey used to be a partner in building the F-35 as a member of an international consortium designed to ensure healthy sales of the Lockheed Martin planes to worthy allies.That was before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to acquire Russia’s most advanced air defense system, the S-400, which is not only incompatible with NATO systems but could also compromise the F-35’s highly classified radar-evading technology. Concerns that operating the S-400 alongside the F-35 could allow the Russian system to gather data about the plane, including its radar signature, and transmit that to Moscow, prompted the first Trump administration to boot Turkey from the program. President Donald Trump with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit in Turkey on July 7. (Alex Brandon/AP Images) In 2020, Congress codified the ban, unless and until Turkey got rid of its S-400s, and committed never to buy Russian systems in the future.And that’s where things stood, until, in Trump’s words, Erdogan “rolled out the red carpet,” and feted Trump upon his arrival for the NATO summit by naming a newly renovated terminal at a Turkish air base in his honor.“We are great friends. The president has done an incredible job,” Trump said at a meeting with Erdogan at his presidential complex. “Just landing at the airport, to see such a beautiful airport, and to have a building named after me … That was very nice. The airport is absolutely beautiful. The roads coming in were brand new and beautiful.”Trump was feeling loved, and he gushed about his “very special relationship” with Erdogan and the “good chemistry” he’s had with him “right from the beginning.”So, when a reporter asked, “Are you going to sell F-35s to Turkey?” Trump was quick to say he’s considering it. “Why wouldn’t we do that? We have a better relationship with Turkey and Turkey’s been, in many ways, much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal,” Trump said, “So yeah, it’s something certainly we’d consider.”“What about the Russian missile defense systems?” a reporter followed up. “I have no concerns about anything having to do with Turkey,” Trump said. “I would say the relationship with Turkey right now is better, probably, than it’s ever been.”Capitol Hill concerns Erdogan, who has been pleading for the state-of-the-art jets for years, was left with the impression that the end of the ban was a done deal.“President Trump and myself have reached an agreement,” he said at a later news conference. “God willing, once F-35s are delivered to Turkey, the whole world will say that America kept its promise.” F-35 Lightning II. (Courtesy of lockheedmartin.com) At his post-summit news conference the next day, Trump hedged a bit: “I haven’t totally made up my mind, but my inclination is to say, ‘Look, he’s done everything. He’s helped us in so many different ways.’”That “inclination” to reward Erdogan for his loyalty to Trump has teed up a confrontation with Congress, including members of his own party.“I hope this is wrong,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) posted on X, along with a long, artificially-generated list of U.S. legal restrictions and sanctions that would have to be waived before F-35s could be provided to Turkey.“I think you’re going to find this is one issue where Democrats and Republicans agree on, no F-35s to Turkey until they get rid of the Russian systems in their military repertoire,” Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) said in an appearance on CNN. “As long as Turkey has bought these weapons systems, anti-missile defense systems from Russia, we should not be allowing them to purchase F-35s, our most advanced fighter jets … That could put American security at risk.”On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) told reporters that Turkey’s return to the F-35 program would be good for both countries, but only if the security threat posed by the S-400 can be mitigated.“We still have questions to answer with respect to what’s being proposed, and we haven’t gotten those answers,” Shaheen said, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. “So, we will wait and see what happens.”U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker laid out the Trump administration’s perspective on potential F-35 sales to Turkey.“I think it’s very clear what American law requires. And you would expect that the United States of America doesn’t want our most sophisticated fighter jet to be tested against Russia’s air defense system,” Whitaker said on CNN’s State of the Union program. “I think what President Trump is doing is negotiating the deal with President Erdogan because that’s the right thing to do, is to accomplish the goal of that law.”Retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former supreme NATO commander, argues that technology has advanced in the last decade to the point where there may be a way around the problem without Turkey having to give up its S-400s.“There very well may be a technical way, using some kind of firewall process, to keep the Russian S-400 air defense very separated from the Joint Strike Fighter F-35,” Stavridis said. “If we found a technical solution to separate those two, I would be in favor of making this sale.”There is no one more adamantly opposed to the sale than America’s ally in the Iran war, Israel.“It would destroy the power balance in the Middle East, because Turkey, I think, has aggressive aspirations,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN’s Dana Bash, after he heard Trump’s comments.“Notwithstanding the personal friendship that President Trump has with Erdogan, it doesn’t make Turkey a friendly state to the United States,” Netanyahu continued. “It’s a regime that’s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States. He harbors Hamas, the Hamas terrorists. He supports them. He finances them. He’s thrown his opponents in jail, all of them. He throws more journalists in jail than anyone can understand. So, he’s not exactly a model ally of the United States.”Trump has been at odds with Netanyahu lately, and his response was to criticize the leader of the Jewish state while crediting himself with keeping Turkey from going to war with Israel on Iran’s side, as if that was a real possibility.“Bibi said rough things about Turkey and Erdogan, and I spoke to him,” Trump said. “He could have gone into the war because he doesn’t like Israel much. And he doesn’t like Bibi much.”“Turkey is very strong. They have a lot of our best equipment … If it weren’t for me, he would have gone in. And he would have been on the other side,” the president continued.Even if the security concerns are resolved, either with a technical fix or by shipping the S-400 systems to Ukraine — which is desperately in need of additional air defenses — it’s not likely Turkey would get F-35s anytime soon.TRUMP SAYS IRAN CEASEFIRE IS ‘OVER’: THEY’RE SCUM. THEY’RE SICK PEOPLE’“I saw in Fort Worth these planes rolling off the lines, and they’re already assigned to other countries, including the United States,” Whitaker told CNN. “So, I think it’s going to be a long-term process, but we need to make sure that the deal is in the American people’s interest.”“That’s, I think, a deal that can happen,” he added. Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on national security.