Switzerland to send its old jets back to US

Bloomberg

The US is expected to buy 22 aging fighter jets from Switzerland, a country that’s struggling to modernise its own air force.
US Navy representatives and the Swiss defense procurement agency, known as Armasuisse, discussed the deal in July, an agency spokesman said by email. The contract is expected to be signed once US lawmakers approve the fiscal 2020 defense budget, he said.
President Donald Trump is seeking $718 billion in Pentagon funding for 2020, including $39.7 million for the F-5s, an aircraft first delivered to Switzerland in 1978. Nowadays, the US uses the F-5 to simulate enemy planes in aerial combat training.
Switzerland has been trying to buy new warplanes for years. Voters in 2014 rejected a 3.1 billion-franc ($3.2 billion) order for Saab AB Gripen fighter jets. Switzerland now plans to spend about 6 billion francs on new fighter jets, according to SonntagsZeitung newspaper and previous Swiss media reports.
“If the Americans want to take over the scrap iron, they should do it,” Beat Flach, a Green Liberal lawmaker, told SonntagsZeitung, which reported on the planned sale. “It’s better than having the Tigers rot in a parking lot.”