Lee Ferran
WASHINGTON — As US President Donald Trump sat in the newly gold-adorned Oval Office with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a smaller piece of precious metal caught the eye of some observers: a pin, worn on the lapel of Trump’s jacket, that resembled a fighter jet.
Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a golden F-22 Raptor, a miniature of the Lockheed Martin-made fifth-generation stealth fighter.
What was less clear, and remains so, is why the president chose to wear that particular pin for that particular meeting on Thursday. (A White House spokesperson gamely confirmed to Breaking Defense that it was an F-22, but declined to comment further on Trump’s wardrobe.)
The detail is particularly intriguing considering Turkey has long sought re-entry into another American fifth-generation fighter jet program: the F-35, which is also made by Lockheed Martin and is the counterpart to the air-to-air specialist F-22.
“We’re going to discuss the F-35. We’ll be discussing all of the things that you know about …,” Trump said, sitting next to Erdogan. “And I think you’ll be successful with buying the things that he’d like to buy. … We’ll have to see. We haven’t even started yet but I know he wants the F-35, and he’s wanted, and we’re talking about that very seriously.”
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