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UAE Suspends Multi-billion Dollar Deal To Buy US-made F-35 Fighter Jets, Amid US Push To Drop China’s Huawei
UAE suspends multi-billion dollar deal to buy US-made F-35 Fighter Jets, Amid US push to drop China’s Huawei tech.
The US govt claimed that the Chinese technology could pose a security risk for its weapons systems.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has suspended a multi-billion dollar deal to buy US-made F-35 fighter jets, amid the US government’s repeated push that the oil-rich Gulf state should drop China’s Huawei Technologies Co. from its telecommunications network.
The United States government had claimed that the Chinese technology could pose a security risk for its weapons systems.
An Emirati official told CNN that :
“The UAE has informed the US that it will suspend discussions to acquire the F-35,”
“Technical requirements, sovereign operational restrictions, and cost/benefit analysis led to the re-assessment.”
“The UAE and US were working toward an understanding that would address mutual defense security conditions for the acquisition,” the official added.
“The US remains the UAE’s preferred provider for advanced defense requirements and discussions for the F-35 may be re-opened in the future.”
When asked last week whether the UAE would have to choose between Huawei and the F-35s, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Regional Security Mira Resnick told CNN’s Becky Anderson :
“The F-35 is our crown jewel of the United States, of our air force and so we need to be able to protect the technology security for all of our partners,”
“These are the conversations we have with the Emiratis about the choices they can make now to be sure they can be part of the F-35 program,” Resnick added.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby also said that the US was willing to work with the UAE to address both countries’ concerns.
“We will always insist, as a matter of statutory requirements and policy, on a variety of end-user requirements. That’s typical.”
“And these end-user requirements and protection of US defense equipment are universal, nonnegotiable and not specific to the UAE,” he added.
But UAE officials have been skeptical about US claims about the potential security breach and have expressed anxiety about getting caught up in a “new cold war” between a top trading partner and its main strategic ally.
“What we are worried about is this fine line between acute competition (between China and the US) and a new Cold War,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE leadership, said in remarks to the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington last week.
“Because I think we, as a small state, will be affected negatively by this, but will not have the ability in any way to affect this competition even positively really.”
