The U.S. ambassador to Portugal has urged Lisbon to replace its ageing F-16 fighter jets with Lockheed Martin’s F-35, saying the stealth aircraft would ensure compatibility with Europe’s top-tier air forces.
Ambassador John Arrigo told CNN Portugal late on Sunday that he intended to draw on his business experience to help Portugal increase defence spending to NATO’s target of 5% of gross domestic product by 2035, up from the current 2%.
"F-35 is the best fighter - it's a fifth-generation stealth fighter, it'll get them (the Portuguese Air Force) into the Champions League when it comes to the EU," Arrigo said.
Portuguese Defence Minister Nuno Melo said in November that the selection process for the replacement fighters had not yet started.
Arrigo said more than 900 F-35s were either in service or on order across Europe and that, for “interoperability, the F-35 is definitely the way to go.” He also noted that 25% of the aircraft is manufactured using European components.
On relations with China, the ambassador said the Trump administration was not pushing Portugal to choose between Washington and Beijing or to decouple from China. Instead, the U.S. was promoting “de-risking”, he said, through measures such as strengthening cybersecurity and tightening investment screening.
Chinese companies expanded in Portugal following the 2011–14 bailout, when lower asset prices attracted foreign investors.
Portugal secured a €78 billion bailout in May 2011 from the EU, IMF and ECB after soaring borrowing costs during the eurozone debt crisis cut it off from the markets. In return, it agreed to harsh austerity measures that triggered a deep recession.
Arrigo said the U.S. sees itself as Portugal's "best partner but wants to keep any adversary... at arm's length."
Portugal joined China's Belt and Road Initiative in December 2018. Arrigo said Lisbon's partnership with the U.S. would "flourish" if it were to exit the initiative, as Italy did in 2023.
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 11 November. Today, we cover Russia-Ukraine peace talks, political tensions in Washington, strikes in Spain, espionage allegations involving Nvidia's CEO, and climate negotiations at COP31 in Türkiye.
Azerbaijan and the UK have pledged to strengthen defence, trade and education cooperation after signing a joint declaration elevating relations to a strategic level in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday (12 November).
More than 333,000 people have been forced from their homes in Yemen since the beginning of August as fighting has escalated, including more than 24,000 in the past week alone, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on treason charges, after prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to double tariffs on Mexico unless it stops more than a thousand migrants who are walking north towards the United States, warning that they will be denied entry.
A gunman shot dead his building’s manager and wounded four other people in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, before barricading himself inside his apartment and taking his own life after a standoff with police, officials said.
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