The Reagan administration informally notified Congress earlier this month that it intends to sell 75 F-16 fighter planes to Israel, worth $2 billion, a Capitol Hill source said Friday.
The sale originated last year as a way to help offset Israel’s cancellation of the Lavi fighter plane project.
The administration must formally notify Congress of the sale by April 4. Congress then has 30 days to vote to block the sale. If it does not vote on the matter, the sale will go through automatically.
The source said that the planes, which will be built by General Dynamics, will be delivered in 1990, which marks a speeding up of the procurement process from the usual three to four years required to build the planes.
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