Key Points and Summary – The Trump Administration is exploring a workaround to restore Turkey’s access to F-35s by deeming Ankara’s Russian S-400 “inoperable” after removing a component—an attempt to skirt CAATSA sanctions that Congress must review.
-Critics warn the reversible fix sets a dangerous precedent: Iran or North Korea could cite it to “disable” systems temporarily while preserving rapid reactivation.
U.S. Air Force Airmen load a munition onto an F-35 Lightning II in preparation to conduct a scenario during Checkered Flag 24-1 at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, Nov. 1, 2023. Checkered Flag is a large-force aerial exercise held at Tyndall Air Force Base which fosters readiness and interoperability through the incorporation of 4th and 5th-generation aircraft during air-to-air combat training. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jake Carter)
-Turkey wants F-35s to keep pace with regional rivals and seed its defense industry, but Congress previously sanctioned Ankara for buying the S-400.
-A safer alternative: allow allied F-35s to use Turkish bases for NATO defense without transferring jets or eroding nonproliferation standards.
Trump’s F-35 Work Around Could be Gift to Iran, North Korea
President Donald Trump met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the White House on September 25, 2025, following the appearance of both leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.
Trump actively seeks to reset U.S. relations with Turkey following years of strain that culminated in Turkey’s expulsion from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and, nine months later, the imposition of Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) secondary sanction on the wayward NATO member on December 14, 2020 for engaging in “significant transactions” with Russia’s defense sector.
F-35 Deal Reboot for Turkey?
Erdoğan is desperate to regain access to the F-35 for two reasons. First, Turkey reverse-engineers American technology to pollinate its own defense industry and, second, with Turkey’s regional rivals—Israel, then the United Arab Emirates, and Greece each getting the F-35—Turkey fears being left behind qualitatively.
Congress initially passed CAATSA to target Russia, North Korea, and Iran; that Erdoğan pushed Turkey into CAATSA designation was a strategic blunder and a reflection either on the sheer incompetence of Turkey’s politicized Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Erdoğan’s refusal to listen to counsel.
S-400 Challenge
The problem now for Trump is that, as much as he would like to remove sanctions on Turkey, he cannot do so unilaterally.
The president can report to Congress that lifting sanctions is in the “vital national security interests” of the United States, but Congress has 30 days to review the president’s proposed waiver.
The S-400 cannot be waived away and is not easily moved, even if Russia purchased it back.
What Our Sources Are Telling Us
Consequently, Trump’s technical team has sought to create a loophole, according to 4 sources familiar with discussions on the matter. Turkey will remove a component from the S-400 and declare it ‘inoperable’.
It would be the anti-aircraft system equivalent of rendering a rifle inoperable by removing the bolt or taking the firing pin out of other firearms.
S-400 Inoperable? The Dangers Of Such a Move
The problem, of course, is that removing the pin does not permanently destroy the firearm; it is reversible.
Suppose Congress allows Trump and perhaps Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to declare the S-400 neutralized because Turkey removes a single component. In that case, they may enable Trump’s short-term sale of F-35s to Turkey to proceed, but this could create a long-term disaster.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Kristin “BEO” Wolfe, F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team pilot and commander, performs for F-135 engine maintainers assigned to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., May 25, 2021. The F-35A Demonstration Team put on the performance for the maintainers as a show of appreciation for keeping F-35s throughout the Department of Defense running and in the sky. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Thomas Barley)
Trump, for example, wants Iran to dismantle its nuclear program. If Iran cites the Turkey precedent, especially with a president in the Oval Office more conducive toward Tehran, then it needs only to remove a few screws or take a step that it could reverse in a matter of days, if not hours. North Korea, too, could deploy new missiles along the demilitarized zone, but then render them inoperable in the same manner that Trump accepts with the S-400.
Another Path Forward on F-35
In short, while Trump may wish to placate Erdoğan by providing him with the F-35s he craves and while he is willing to strong-arm Congress to get his way, much more is at stake than just the U.S.-Turkey relationship.
If Turkey’s desire to have the F-35 is purely about NATO, another compromise is possible. Other European NATO states, not only Greece, but also Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the United Kingdom, also have or will soon have the F-35. Perhaps Erdoğan can allow these countries to utilize Turkish airfields for the alliance’s common defense. Erdoğan might balk, but he cannot have it both ways.
Just as Trump and Congress called Erdoğan’s bluff during Trump’s first term when Erdoğan cast his lot with Russia, Trump and Congress can call the Turkish leader’s bluff again to show NATO interests and the alliance’s defense are less his interests than having a platform that could kill Kurds, threaten neighbors, or assist Hamas against Israel.
About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. The opinions and views expressed are his own. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units. The views expressed are the author’s own.
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Jim
September 30, 2025 at 11:47 am
Turkey’s Ottoman style, two-face Janissary foreign policy has its limits.
S-400 or F-35, what’ll it be? You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both.
I agree. the idea you can remove a part or two and that constitutes being ‘inoperable’ is a deception as much as a loophole.
But given a broad overview of Trump’s foreign policy, so far, it would seem deception and trickery is part-n-parcel of the Trumpian style of foreign policy.
It’s destructive, it operates on the assumption you can deceive about almost anything and get away with it.
You can get away with deception for a time, but people wise up pretty quickly, especially on the international level.
But they don’t always object and say anything, instead they take the example and say to themselves, “If the United States can lie as a basic component of foreign policy, so can we.”
It’s corrosive. It breaks down the international system. I get it, many say it’s a jungle out there, the strong do what they want and the weak do what they must at the international level. (As if lying is a prerogative of the strong.)
But there are many strong nations: the United States, China, Russia, India… and others where you can bully them with sanctions and so forth, but you can’t effectively put the ultimate hammerlock on them, say Brazil, for example or Indonesia (the days of instituting a coup on big countries with limited militaries is in its twilight).
The author’s solution is workable, better than euphemisms which paper over essential lies.
The other option, do the sale, but with the understanding the United States gets to “reverse engineer” the S-400. I hear it’s better than the Patriot System… we could learn a thing or two.
Maybe, the Russians would object and simply take back the S-400, who knows.
But I’m sick of the deception… it’s not working and Trump is digging a hole for himself and the United States.
Swamplaw Yankee
October 1, 2025 at 2:17 am
Don’t you love being a Yankee? You get to ask other Yankees how best to focus on lint removal from your belly button.
What would another empire do? Say, the EU? Is it in the top 10 priority items for the EU and Europe to sell a F=35 air frame to a radical muslim country? Especially a state which just evicted with Genocide it’s original Christian aboriginals and with a current state leader who regularly pines in public for the old Ottoman empire era.
The Yankee Doctor seems selective here. Is he just being nicey-nice with/for the inner beltway reader? What about the Doctors old, old favourite: Cyprus?
Remember the signed POTUS letter that never made it out of the State Department. Oh, that was so, so very long ago was it? Its like speaking about an Independent Ukraine before there were weird Halloween costumes of something called Communists.
So, just the Doctor himself had over the years keyboarded over a mile of wordage just on the muslim invasion of Cyprus. Now, zip about that invasion by Turkey of Cyprus while the urgent need of Yankee air industry 2025 sales is the exclusive op-ed focus? Does the peer readership get the skewed picture here?
A real leader of the WEST would see the “victory” for the WEST. Or, at least the European empire part. But, as we only have the financial interest of the Yankee air industry to consider, forget about those millions of butchered Armenians, Pontic Greeks, even 1922 Smyrnians that Erdogan has on his conscience daily.
Lets all vote for donating the stealth technology of the F-35 to the muslim aerospace industry asap + free of charge. That just avoids the period of reverse engineering of the F-35 stealth technology. Erdogan can smoothly continue on with his current muslim based military empire.
The op-ed seems to evaluate Erdogan’s new fighter air frame higher than the Israeli air frame level. Who really know the details? With the new secret F-35 data added to the base knowledge of the muslim technocrats, the USA can be sure to get a great purchase price on their F-35 replacement needs, that will be delivered from Turkey post MAGA POTUS Trump. But, legally purchased before 3 years are up.
Forget that Cyprus British military base stuff! Sorry that old Cyprus somehow came up! -30-
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John
October 1, 2025 at 4:50 pm
Another Trash article by Michael Rubin.
Rubin tries to pretend this is about “non proliferation” but the reality is that he doesn’t want Turkey to acquire F-35s because of Israel, and his own personal agenda regarding the country.
What Rubin fails to mention is that The S-400 is an upgraded version of the S-300, a system that Greece currently employs. The S-400 in Turkey isn’t even operational, and was bought b/c the United States refused to sell Patriot Missiles to Turkey, Turkey is in a very dangerous neighborhood, and after the Russian plane shootdown prompted Germany to withdraw its own Patriot batteries from Turkey, along with Turkey not being able to protect its own airspace from jets during the coup attempt, prompted the necessity for Turkey to acquire Air Defense and Russia was the only one that was willing to sell.
Its only after Russia sold the S-400, that the US decided, its not opposed to selling Patriots to Turkey, all this drama could have been avoided if the US had sold the Patriots to Turkey in the first place. Anyways thats all ancient history.
What Michael Rubin fails to understand is that if Turkey is denied the F-35 from its own NATO ally, it will do the same thing it did with the Patriot situation, and reevaluate its defense alignments with supposed allies who refuse to sell it equipment to defend itself. China is currently marketing the J-35 Stealth aircraft for export, and previously when Turkey was denied the Patriots, it had sought the Chinese HQ-9 Air Defense System, before Washington convinced it to drop the sale, over promises of Patriots that never came.
Michael Rubin would have the US lose Turkey as a geotrategic partner in a time when its prominent in the region, and with Russia expanding its footprint in Eastern Europe. The man suggests the US sacrifice a relationship over some BS about “nonproliferation”? Since when did Air Defense Systems become contraband? lol