The president of Finland on Tuesday denied his country is ready to purchase F/A-18 fighter jets from defense giant Boeing after President Trump made the claim during a meeting this week, according to a report.
President Sauli Niinisto suggested Trump had been confused about Finland’s plans to replace its aging fleet of F/A-18 Hornets with new aircraft by 2025. The country is eyeing various aviation contractors to provide the replacement jets, including Boeing, BAE Systems, and Lockheed Martin, according to the trade publication Jane’s 360.
“It seems that on the sale side, past decisions and hopes about future decisions have mixed … The purchase is just starting, and that is very clear here,” Niinisto told foreign reporters, Reuters reported.
He also tweeted out what appeared to be a Finnish idiom confirming the claims of a Boeing purchase were unsupported.
Uutinen f-18 hävittäjien ostamisesta on ankka.
— Sauli Niinistö (@niinisto) August 28, 2017
Trump mentioned an F/A-18 deal with Finland a joint news conference with Niinisto on Monday at the White House.
“One of the things that is happening is you’re purchasing large amounts of our great F-18 aircraft from Boeing, and it’s one of the great planes, one of the great fighter jets, and you’re purchasing lots of other military equipment, and, I think, purchasing very wisely,” Trump said. “I know all of the military equipment and I actually agree with everything you purchased.”
A $156 million U.S. military sale to Finland to upgrade its existing F/A-18s was approved by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in December.
