President Trump’s bravado about successes in the F-35 program that were set to occur before he took office doesn’t really matter if his attention to industry can keep the acquisition program on cost and on time, many experts said.
Last week, when Trump claimed that he had negotiated $600 million in savings on the latest lot of F-35s, he also took credit for fixing years of delays and problems plaguing the Joint Strike Fighter program since being elected.
“There were great delays, about seven years of delays, tremendous cost overruns. We’ve ended all of that, and we’ve got that program really, really now in good shape, so I’m very proud of that,” Trump said.
While the program has had its fair share of setbacks, it’s been on track mostly for the past several years after a rebaselining effort in 2012 that Trump had nothing to do with.
“After 2012, the program has been largely on schedule, on cost. I don’t think he can take credit for that,” said Andrew Hunter, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That is an accomplishment, frankly, of [then-acquisitions chief] Ash Carter and his successor Frank Kendall, who continued to manage the program with enormous attention over the years.”
Plus, the cost savings Trump cited fall roughly in line with program officials who last year projected a 6-7 percent drop in cost.
But who takes credit for past accomplishments is not as important as how Trump handles the future of the program, and what his involvement at a very high level can get done, experts said.
“We’re really only like 10 percent of the way through spending the money that we’re going to end up spending on the F-35, so there is plenty of work left to be done,” Hunter said.
Some areas of the program still on the to-do list in which Trump could make a measurable impact include securing additional funding for testing and development, as well as the question of who pays for the retrofit of already-purchased aircraft once testing is complete, Hunter said.
It’s unusual for someone as high-ranking as the president to get involved in specific acquisition decisions, and analysts agreed that, if Trump continues focusing on the F-35 program, it’s likely to have a real impact, not only on Lockheed Martin, but also more broadly on the rest of the defense industry.
“For the president of the United States to engage a company, no matter how big it is, has got to send shivers up and down the spine of that company and anybody else in the defense industry,” said J.V. Venable, a senior research fellow for defense policy at the Heritage Foundation. “His engagement will have an impact and it will drive things to happen faster than they would have otherwise.”
Venable predicted Trump could serve as a sort of bridge with negotiating power on both Capitol Hill and with Lockheed Martin. In one example, he said Trump could talk to Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson about how buying more planes could reduce the cost per unit to about $85 million, and could then strike a deal with House and Senate lawmakers to commit to larger purchases.
“If he’s willing to be the person who puts heat on both, then the entire apparatus of defense and acquisitions and the vendors who supply our defense needs are all going to be better for it,” Venable said. “That’s something that we haven’t had in a president in my lifetime.”
There is some danger to Trump taking credit for accomplishments that aren’t his, warned Richard Aboulafia, the vice president of analysis at the Teal Group.
“If he himself believes it and thinks he can achieve similar magic with other programs, [he could] get frustrated when that’s not possible and then send angry tweets that endanger those programs,” Aboulafia said.
Other potential problems include slighting the Pentagon officials and contractors who are working hard and are actually behind those successes, as well as much broader issues if Trump applies this mentality to other segments of the government, such as the economy.
