President Trump said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently thanked him for saving that country $100 million on its purchases of the F-35 joint strike fighter.
The president recounted the conversation with Abe in an interview with the Associated Press published Sunday, and also reiterated his widely debunked claim that he was responsible for convincing the aircraft’s maker, Lockheed Martin, to knock $725 million off an order of 90 F-35s.
Japan, a long-time U.S. ally, is one of the F-35’s foreign customers. Abe visited Trump in the United States in February and spent time at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
“The first thing he said to me, because it was right at the time I did it, he said, ‘Could I thank you?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You saved us $100 million,’ ” Trump told the Associated Press. “Because they got a $100 million savings on the 10 or 12 planes that they [bought].”
“Nobody wrote that story,” the president said.
In February, Lockheed announced it reached a deal with the U.S. government to build a 10th batch of the fifth-generation fighter, and that for the first time the unit cost for the A version will be less than $100 million apiece. The 90 planes included 55 for the U.S. and 35 for international partners.
The 8 percent reduction in cost had been in the works before Trump became involved and was the product of months of negotiations and years of cost-cutting work by the government and Lockheed.
Trump in the interview said he decided to publicly criticize the cost of the F-35 program, the most expensive procurement program in Defense Department history, after seeing a “terrible article” about the aircraft.
“It was hundreds of billions of dollars over budget. It was seven years behind schedule. It was a disaster,” Trump said. “So I called in Lockheed and I said, ‘I’m sorry, we’re going to have to bid this out to another company, namely Boeing,’ or whoever else.”
The president also said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was surprised by the price reduction of the F-35 and he quoted the secretary as saying, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
Trump also praised Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson for a program “that was out of control and now it’s great” and said he now expects to save even more as the U.S. plans to order thousands of the aircraft. Hewson said Trump’s involvement “absolutely” helped in negotiations, but stopped short of saying he was responsible for the savings.
“All of a sudden it [the F-35 program] was a different kind of a thing. You know?” Trump said.
