The Pentagon has given Lockheed Martin a new contract of $450 million to help deliver the F-35, amid concerns GOP President-elect Donald Trump may scrap the project and focus on cheaper aircraft.
“This modification continues the integration work to implement the development and delivery of the F-35A Air System to the Republic of Korea under the Foreign Military Sales program,” the Pentagon statement said, according to The Hill. “This effort will also provide for non-recurring engineering work.”
This new contract adds nearly 50 percent to the original $920 million contract in 2015, which brings to the forefront cost concerns recently raised by Trump.
In 2015, the original contract included 78 F-35As for foreign customers like Italy and Turkey through the Foreign Military Sales program, 14 F-35Bs for the Marine Corps and others, in addition to two F-35Cs.
Earlier in December, Trump slammed the F-35 fighter jet’s cost on Twitter as “tremendous,” forcing Lockheed shares to plummet by 2 percent. In his tweet criticizing the F-35, Trump said he asked Boeing to offer a competitive price on its F-18 Super Hornet aircraft, even though that jet lacks stealth capabilities.
The F-35 is the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history. Boeing is Lockheed’s top competitor.
Whether Trump scraps the $400 billion dollar F-35 program, which he has criticized for “out of control” costs, remains to be seen.
“We have no idea how this plays out but believe ‘Twitter risk’ for defense companies could be a significant issue over the next four years,” Roman Schweizer, a defense analyst at the Cowan Research Group, told Politico. “This is Lockheed Martin’s time in the barrel. This level of presidential interest, let alone from a president-elect, is unprecedented.”
“There’s been an active debate about what Trump could do in terms of canceling contracts,” Schweizer continued. “After Jan. 20, he will be The President of the United States of America. He has the authority to launch a nuclear strike to end civilization as we know it. He can surely cancel or significantly modify a defense program.”
Lockheed Martin will carry out development in Texas. The project is expected to be completed in August 2019.
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