The US president Donald Trump’s assertion that he is saving the Pentagon a fortune on its next generation fighter jet, the F-35, is being disputed again – this time, by the US armed services commitee and one of the partners in the programme.
The lower price on the US$8.2 billion contract is due to cost reductions achieved through a long-planned increase in production, the BAE Systems chief executive Ian King at the weekend, even as Mr Trump said his personal intervention cut the burden on taxpayers.
Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee, had previously said the $728 million in savings "would have happened anyway". Savings on the order for 90 of the Lockheed Martin combat jets exceeded the $600m that Mr Trump initially said he had achieved.
"This is simply taking credit for what’s been in the works for many months," Mr Reed said.
The latest conundrum comes after the US air force last week said it could not account for $1bn in savings that Mr Trump said he had negotiated for the programme to develop, purchase and operate two new Boeing jets to serve as Air Force One.
"I got the generals in, who are fantastic. I got Boeing in. But I told Boeing it’s not good enough. We’re not going to do it. The price is still too high," he told a rally in Florida.
But that left military officials scratching their heads.
"To my knowledge I have not been told that we have that information," Colonel Pat Ryder, an air force spokesman, said when asked how Mr Trump had managed to reduce the price for the new presidential plane.
Regarding the latest Trump claims, Mr King said: "In terms of the projected prices, they were all to do with the ramp-up in rates and were well-advertised.
"But if somebody wants to take credit for that finalisation, negotiation, then they can take credit for that negotiation if they wish."
At the weekend, BAE said Mr King’s comments were taken out of context.
"In response to a question, Mr King confirmed that the F-35 partners continue to target cost reductions as production ramps up," the company said. "In subsequent public comments, Mr King also confirmed that president Trump’s intervention had acted as a catalyst to accelerate negotiations and agree significant price reductions over the previous contract and that remains our view."
Lockheed told Mr Trump last month it was working on a deal with the Pentagon to lower costs "significantly" for the next production lot of fighters. When the pact was announced this month, the White House press secretary Sean Spicer called it "another big win the president has delivered on for US taxpayers".
The new contract is the 10th tranche in a $379bn programme. Defence department officials and Lockheed had been negotiating for more than a year and "were very close on price prior to president Trump’s involvement", said Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer under Barack Obama.

Source: The National