India Business Journal - Trump administration awards US Air Force’s fighter jet contract to Boeing

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Trump administration awards US Air Force’s fighter jet contract to Boeing

IBJ Bureau
Mar 23, 2025

US President Donald Trump has awarded Boeing a contract to build the US Air Force’s most sophisticated fighter jet yet, handing the company a much-needed win and boosting its shares.

The Next Generation Air Dominance programme will replace Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor with a crewed aircraft built to enter combat alongside drones.

Mr Trump, the 47th US president, has announced the new jet’s name the F-47.

“We have given an order for a lot. We can't tell you the price,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“Our allies are calling constantly,” Mr Trump added, saying that foreign sales could be an option. “They want to buy them also.”

For Boeing, the win marks a reversal of fortune for a company that has struggled on both the commercial and defence sides of its business. It is a major boost for its St Louis, Missouri, fighter jet production business.

The loss is another blow to Lockheed after it was eliminated from the competition to build the Navy’s next-generation, carrier-based stealth fighter and amid growing discontent from the Pentagon over delays in upgrading its F-35 fighter jet.

In recent weeks, Mr Trump has met with Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet to discuss the F-35, according to three sources.

The engineering and manufacturing development contract is worth more than $20 billion. Boeing’s win means that it will make the jet fighter and receive orders worth hundreds of billions of dollars over the contract’s multi-decade lifetime.