Lockheed Martin Will Sell $23 Billion Worth of F-16 Fighter Jets to Turkey
Military contractor Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is in the business of building fighter jets -- and business is booming. In a pair of Earth-shaking announcements last week, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) informed Congress of a plan to sell a combined $31.6 billion in new weapons sales to Greece and Turkey.
But the biggest of these deals is for Turkey.
As you may already know, DSCA is the Pentagon department responsible for coordinating sensitive weapons sales between U.S. defense contractors and foreign governments. Turkey says it wants these new fighter jets to "expand and modernize" its air force, which currently comprises primarily older F-16C Falcon and F-4E Phantom fighter jets. Before this sale can go through, though, the U.S. State Department must sign off on the deal as supporting "the foreign policy goals and national security of the United States" and unlikely to "alter the basic military balance in the region" -- in this case, southern Europe -- and Congress must either approve or reject the sale.
Source Fool.com
