UK to Buy Nuclear-Capable F-35s Amid Risk of Trump Pullback
A US Air Force Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II military jet at the Paris Air Show in Paris.
Photographer: Nathan Laine/BloombergTakeaways by Bloomberg AI
The UK will buy at least a dozen new US-made F-35 fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer seeks to curry favor with President Donald Trump while hedging against a pull-back in American security support.
Starmer announced plans to purchase the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35A stealth fighters ahead of the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday, an acquisition that would give the Royal Air Force a nuclear role for first time in a quarter century. In recent years, the UK has depended solely on the continuous deployment of nuclear-armed submarines to provide strategic deterrence against rivals such as Russia.