President Donald Trump confirmed Monday that he will allow Saudi Arabia to purchase F-35 stealth fighter planes, a move that will likely anger Israel as the U.S. deepens ties with another Middle East powerhouse.

Trump announced his plan ahead of a Tuesday meeting at the White House with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader.

“I am planning on doing that,” he told reporters when asked if he intended to allow Saudi Arabia access to America’s most advanced fighter jet. “They want to buy them. They’ve been a great ally.”

Trump pointed to Saudi Arabia’s assistance with the U.S. missile strikes this year that he said “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites. He also seemed to confirm that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will sign a security agreement, although he offered no details about its parameters.

The two-day visit by Mohammed, which will continue on Wednesday with a joint U.S.-Saudi investment conference at the Kennedy Center in Washington, marks a significant moment in the relationship. The president will effectively decouple a broader strengthening of economic and security ties from his long-held goal of convincing Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, a priority that has been derailed by the conflict in Gaza.

But actually delivering the fighter jets to Saudi Arabia would prove a massive and geopolitically fraught undertaking. Spinning production lines into high gear to fill the orders for Saudi F-35s could take years, as could training pilots to fly them. And lawmakers or future administrations could halt the process before it’s complete.

“Politically this signals a strong commitment by the U.S. agreeing to sell its most advanced fifth-generation fighter to a country in the Middle East other than Israel,” said Firas Maksad at the Eurasia Group. But, he noted, the contracting process for arms sales can take years, and “there will be opportunities in the future for Congress to put a hold on it.”

While Israel has not expressed public opposition to the deal, a potential U.S. sale of fighter jets to Riyadh could upend Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” a longstanding American law that ensures Pentagon weapons that flow into the Middle East do not erode Tel Aviv’s military advantages. That means that Israel could weigh in on the technology and weapons that go on board the jet, such as the sophistication of the sensors or the range of its missiles.

The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If the deal moves forward, it would make the third major arms package Trump has agreed to with the Saudi regime between his two terms. The U.S. in May announced a $142 billion arms and security package, which is said to include air and missile defenses, maritime assets, and other weapons and support.

Trump, in his first term, also announced a $120 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, although most of that included items negotiated under the Obama administration.

Details of both packages were kept vague and it remains unclear how many have actually led to signed contracts.

The Trump administration in 2020 agreed to sell F-35 jets to the United Arab Emirates as part of a wider push to get the Gulf nation to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. Some U.S. officials pushed back at the plan due to the U.A.E.’s close relationship with China, and the deal was put on hold by the Biden administration in 2021. It eventually fell apart after the Biden team said they would impose restrictions on shared technology as part of the deal.

Saudi Arabia is a major purchaser of American weapons, most notably the kingdom’s $15 billion purchase of the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense system, known as THAAD, during the first Trump administration in 2018.

The U.S. is likely to gear the sale toward making Saudi Arabia’s military more able to cooperate with the Pentagon.

“The emphasis is going to be on interoperability,” said Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official focused on the region. “We want them to operate the machinery with us. It’s going to have some minimum requirements.”