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Portugal has a massive maritime Exclusive Economic Area for the size of the country both because it mainly stands alone at the westermost tip of Europe (bar a small piece of Spain to the north of Portugal and then, way further North and more to the East, the Republic Of Ireland), and because of the Azores archipelago (which adds a massive circle in the middle of the Atlantic to Portugal's maritime EEA) and the Madeira archipelago (which adds a semi-circle off the West coast of Africa).
Further, Portugal is expected to militarily cooperate with the rest of the EU in case of an attack on any EU country (the most likely of which would be Russia attacking an Eastern European member) and ditto for NATO, which is especially important for exactly fighter planes because they're the most mobile military assets around.
It makes sense for the Portuguese Military to focus more on the Air Force, Navy, the local equivalent of Marines (Fuzileiros) and air-transported commandos and less on Armor, Artillery and Regular Infantry exactly because it's land territory is far less likely to be directly invaded but it both has a massive sea "territory" and it belongs to very large military alliances or alliances with military treaty obligations containing far away members which have a real risk of being invaded.
Okay, but actually attacking them on the far western tip of the continent would require going past the rest of the EU/NATO bloc. That's just not realistic. The most they might ever deal with is piracy, and they don't need jets for that.
Fulfilling obligations is obviously necessary, but they don't need new jets. This is obviously just military Keynesianism.
Russia has bases in São Tomé and Príncipe.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian ships and submarines have passed along the Portuguese coast, only leaving with the intervention of our navy and even before this war, it was customary for Russian jets to violate the airspace of a random European country at least once a month, only leaving under the escort of the air forces to test their response time. We are not that protected from Russia as the geographical distance might erroneously lead us to believe.
In short, jets are needed for at least surveillance, deterrence and joint missions with our allies.
P.S.: I hope it doesn't happen, but Trump has already threatened to violate the territorial integrity of Canada and Denmark. Who can guarantee that he won't do the same to Portugal? The Azores archipelago, halfway between the US and Europe, is quite important strategically. He might consider claiming our islands.
I'm sorry but you're just talking of your ass there.
Portuguese Air-force assets, including fighter jets, are constantly deployed to the Portuguese Economic Area for missions such following the naval assets of hostile nations passing through or near it or even investigating possible criminal activity. The maritime EEA of Portugal is way larger than the actual country and at times the only vehicles that can reach further out enough fast enough are fighter jets.
Furter, fighter jets are literally the only kind of significant help Portugal would be able to send within to its Eastern European partners in the EU and NATO if Russia invaded them (certainly neither the Leopard tanks or regular infantry would get there for a while).
By pointing out that the land territory of Portugal is at low risk of invasion you're actually making the point in favor of fighter jets since those assets make a lot more sense than ground-based assets for a country whose main military demands are on a huge sea area off its territority including far-away parts (around Madeira and Azores) and its military obligations in the two large military alliances the country is part of.
I'd also happily argue against ground-based assets, they don't need tanks either! They need tools for enforcing their naval sovereignty and fighting pirates and such, but fighter jets aren't really the best tools for those jobs.
Also, I acknowledged that fulfilling obligations is necessary. They don't need new fighter jets for that. Besides, if we reach the point where Russia invades NATO it's just going to rapidly escalate to nukes and then we'll all die anyway so 🤷♀️
This is just Portugal giving away their own people's money to businesses in other countries.