Pres­i­dent Trump said at a news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day that the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates is seek­ing to buy an unknown num­ber of F‑35 Light­ning II fifth-gen­er­a­tion fight­er jets.

Accord­ing to Trump, the UAE was inter­est­ed in buy­ing advanced F‑35 Light­ning II fight­er jets made by Lock­heed Mar­tin Corp.

“They’d like to buy F‑35’s, we’ll see what hap­pens, it’s under review,” said Trump.

The announce­ment comes just days after the agree­ment between Israel and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates to nor­mal­ize diplo­mat­ic ties and forge a broad new relationship.

U.S. defense jour­nal­ist and com­men­ta­tor Steve Trim­ble wrote in response to the news: “UAE first expressed inter­est in F‑35 in 2009 at the Dubai Air Show. The USAF for­mal­ly opened dis­cus­sions with the UAE in 2017. The UAE then decid­ed to upgrade their F‑16s and Mirage 2000s. So they don’t need a new fight­er for sev­er­al years, but remain interested.”

Back­ground: UAE first expressed inter­est in F‑35 in 2009 at the Dubai Air Show. The USAF for­mal­ly opened dis­cus­sions with the UAE in 2017. The UAE then decid­ed to upgrade their F‑16s and Mirage 2000s. So they don’t need a new fight­er for sev­er­al years, but remain inter­est­ed. https://t.co/u1QHI1fYWe

— Steve Trim­ble (@TheDEWLine) August 19, 2020

Pre­vi­ous­ly it was report­ed the UAE mil­i­tary del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed Israel to review oper­a­tions of the advanced US-made F‑35 fight­er jets in 2018. A del­e­ga­tion from the USA was also present at the time of the UAE vis­it to Neva­tim Air Base in Israel.

At the same time, the U.S. Air Force has deployed its most mod­ern stealth fight­ers to Al Dhafra Air Base, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates in 2019.