BAE to cut stealth jet’s costs after Donald Trump blast

British defence giant BAE Systems will shrink costs on a stealth-jet programme after President-elect Donald Trump asked for at least a 10% reduction in costs on the deal.

Sir Roger Carr, BAE chairman, said the company would help Lockheed Martin push down the costs on its flagship F-35 jet programme amid anger from Trump over its “tremendous cost and cost overruns”.

BAE is a major sub-contractor to Lockheed on the project.

“We’ve been told through Lockheed that the president has an ambition to reduce the cost of that aircraft by a material amount of money, many percent, into double digits over a period. We respect that and we’ll work towards a contribution to that,” he told Bloomberg.

BAE makes the fuselage, wings and tail parts for jets on the $379 billion decades-long contract, which will eventually supply 3000 planes to the US military.

Trump met Lockheed executives before Christmas after exploring plans to hire its big rival Boeing to build similar jets. Lockheed is close to a new contract which would cut the price, chief executive Marillyn Hewson said.