Three Countries Formerly Known as Allies Reconsidering F-35 Purchases
First. Portugal:
Portugal is getting cold feet about replacing its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets with more modern F-35s because of Donald Trump — in one of the first examples of the U.S. president undermining a potential lucrative arms deal.
The country’s air force has recommended buying Lockheed Martin F-35s, but when outgoing Defense Minister Nuno Melo was asked by Portugese media Público whether the government would follow that recommendation, he replied: “We cannot ignore the geopolitical environment in our choices. The recent position of the United States, in the context of NATO … must make us think about the best options, because the predictability of our allies is a greater asset to take into account.”
The defense ministry later sent a statement to POLITICO saying: “F-35s fighters were not ruled out from the F-16 replacement selection process.”
The ministry added a series of criteria that will be considered by Lisbon, including: “The geopolitical context” and “The extent of restrictions on the use of aircraft.”
Then, Canada:
Canada is actively looking at potential alternatives to the U.S.-built F-35 stealth fighter and will hold conversations with rival aircraft makers, Defence Minister Bill Blair said late Friday, just hours after being reappointed to the post as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet.
[snip]
There has been a groundswell of support among Canadians to kill the $19-billion purchase and find aircraft other than those manufactured and maintained in the United States.
And now Switzerland (Google Translate):
SP Switzerland demands from the new Federal Council and VBS Chairman Martin Pfister to stop the F-35 procurement immediately. In addition, a parliamentary commission of inquiry (PUK) is to clarify the chaos in the VBS and the RUAG scandal. In view of the growing international uncertainty and the dangerous solo efforts of US President Donald Trump, the Federal Council must finally show its position. Switzerland needs a security policy that is geared towards Europe and focuses on cooperation, peacebuilding and diplomacy.
«Since Trump took office, Swiss armaments purchases such as the US F-35 jet have increasingly proven to be major mistakes. Trump could block the jets at any time, blackmailing the countries concerned to submit to his dictation in foreign policy », says SP co-president Cédric Wermuth. «In addition, the costs for the F-35 rise to uncontrollable heights, while central questions about its usability and independence remain unanswered. It is therefore clear that the VBS must finally act and stop the procurement of this dysfunctional project. »
Since Trump cut intelligence sharing with Ukraine, thereby making certain military platforms unusable, this has been inevitable.
Trump has started destroying America’s best export: military toys.
Update: Turkey joins in:
Turkey has submitted a request to purchase 40 Typhoon fighter jets from BAE Systems.
This is reported by the publication Defense Security Asia.
The request has been sent to the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom, which is to make a decision on the sale of the aircraft and the export of British technology to Turkey.
The implementation of this potential export contract will be entrusted to the United Kingdom, namely to BAE Systems, which carries out partial production and final assembly of Typhoon fighters at the company in Wharton.
America has only two products to sell – weaponry and debt.
I think each of these countries can probably whip up a multi-trillion $ boondoggle with cost overruns, lack of functional clarity and their own versions of hype.
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They don’t want to vacation here, buy our products, or work with us anymore because of one man who gets off on being a loud mouth and a bully.
Gonna be a long lonely four years.
Not just the one man — look at the large cadre of sycophants and anti-democracy activists he has brought into his administration.
I wouldn’t count on a big uptick in four years.
Trust doesn’t heal-up for about 25. (All of it on good behaviour.)
Probably not forthcoming; Gen-X had a higher Trump vote than the Boomers, so we aren’t expecting relief any generation soon.
It will cost Canada a generation of lower incomes to switch around our whole economy from tied-to-US to more-independent. So we will be cranky that whole time. That’s why the word “betrayal” is being thrown around so much. We spent 35 years of NAFTA integrating almost every industry so that America already had all the economic benefits of us being that 51st. It’s like building a whole house and then having the nails repossessed so that you have to disassemble it again.
This only make sense when the guy at the top is an agent of chaos and in bed with Putin. As he did with Ukraine, turning off the: F16, himars and attacms targeting systems. Not only did he aid and abet a war criminal attack civilian targets, he showed the world his countries top military equipment cannot be trusted
They already knew about these systems, which were designed to protect downed planes from being repaired by an enemy and used against the original country. That sounds good to a potential buyer.
Buying them and then having the US disable them WHILE THEY ARE STILL IN YOUR CONTROL is one of those “the US would never do X” assumptions that Trump seems to delight in busting.
I’m not sure what you mean “while they are still in control”, but of course if some country buys American made hardware, they’re going to need spare parts down the road, which is “control” if they have to beg for them..
Let me make it more specific, then.
If the US sells Ukraine F-15s, neither the US nor Ukraine want Russia to be able to repair downed plans and redeploy them against Ukraine. That’s a good selling point.
If the US sells Ukraine F-15s, then disables them while they are still in the control of Ukraine, that’s not exactly a selling point for Ukraine (or anyone else) to buy more of them.
What it boils down to is whether you trust the US. That’s been declining around the world since November, and cratering over the last month.
We’re long past the issue of “spare parts.” That’s also true for more mundane items like automobiles. “Parts” have been replaced by assemblies and sub-assemblies. Newer cars are computers on wheels. Most of them steer and drive by wire, with only actuators at either end, all controlled by s/w.
In the case of sophisticated weapons systems, that’s much more true, thanks, in part, to SecDef Donald Rumsfeld’s determination to outsource as much procurement as possible. It’s one reason there are about as many contractors as military personnel on many projects.
S/W is a larger component than ever. Private contractors do a great deal of the service, maintenance, repair, and troubleshooting. No support, no weapons system. Trump is threatening to brick them on purpose, on a whim, to get his demented way. That makes buying American a foolish proposition.
There are already concerns about the US attaching “strings” to arms sales, even to our allies, and seeing the US disable certain capabilities of F-16s in Ukraine when Trump cut off intel and delivery of arms supplies did nothing to encourage other nations to purchase our planes.
When US defense contractors develop new weapons, they game out how many orders they expect to receive, and over what time frame they can expect income from those sales. If they find out late in the game that the orders they expected are not going to come in, they will be in a world of hurt, and may try to get the DOD to pick up some of the development costs that would have been covered by others.
It will be curious to see the extent to which the kind of comments coming from the Portuguese, Canadians, and the Swiss will show up in Wall Street analyst reports on companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, and the various subcontractors tied to the big industry players. I envision some of these reports will be revising their opinion of these stocks in a downward direction.
That’s MAGA for you.
Not only in analysts’ reports, but in their own corporate reports as a future event which may harm their earnings, finances and ability to operate as a going concern.
Q1 earnings calls could be quite interesting . . .
As Peterr notes, without export sales, it’s forseeable that R&D on new weapons systems will slow down or may not be funded at all, given the lack of payback on investments. In the end, this will hurt US builders of advanced weapons systems too, and could easily result in the US having less capable systems should any kind of conflict break out. Not exactly making America (militarily) great again. It’s also an open invitation to China and/or North Korea to do something provocative, say, invade Taiwan, shell Seoul, or “accidentally” sink a few Japanese or Philippine destroyers; which countries also depend heavily on US weapons systems for its own defense.
It’s not only R&D on new weapons systems, but technology, medicines, etc..
Republicans say that if taxes go up or if there are regulations on businesses, entrepreneurs will shy from opening and operating businesses, which doesn’t appear to be true. If there’s a buck to be made, somebody it’ll be there.
So it’ll be interesting to see what happens if R&D support dries up.
This will also have a large ripple effect on our balance of trade with (former) allies. If a chunk of our exports to Canada was weapon systems, and they go elsewhere for military procurement, then the balance of trade becomes even more lopsided. Whoopsie!
Excellent piece!
No one wants to talk to, see or do business with Trump other than Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, MBS, Orbán, Netanyahu, Maye Musk and Elon Musk.
Trump thinks he can force the world to do business on his terms. He’s going to tariff the entire world, but he plans on easing tariffs on those countries that will do his bidding. “Play ball with me, using my rules, do what I say, and I’ll be nice to you. If you balk, you won’t be able to sell anything to me. I will isolate you, and the countries that play by my rules will isolate you and destroy your economy.”
The tariffs are designed to tax consumers to pay for the tax cuts on billionaires and corporations, as well as force industries to move to the U.S. in order to have a competitive market here. And, all the rules that they live under in other countries will be dismantled here, so it will be easy for them.
He banks on not having many countries telling him to “F off”, and that most of the world will accept his bullying as the cost of doing business with the U.S.
That’s the ‘tariff them until they squeal’ strategy, in a nutshell, and a new method for Empire building. Whoever first said that “Trump is completely transactional”, nailed it. And I expect that will extend to buying our weapons.
” … they will be in a world of hurt, and may try to get the DOD to pick up some of the development costs that would have been covered by others.” Spot on. At $100MM+ a pop. we’re talking some serious accounting tricks here. Still, how would we know this is happening? DOD is not auditable, and even if it were, Republicans would never allow it to occur.
We’d know, because the DOD would need money for it, and would have to testify before a committee about “cost overruns” and “unforeseen events” that require a supplemental appropriation.
Making the case for this, without the blame somehow coming back to Trump for causing cancelled sales, would be quite the feat.
Maybe a few months ago they would have had to testify before a committee.
But after yesterday’s vote, is there going to be any need for anybody to testify or vote?
Yes.
Yesterday’s vote was nothing out of the ordinary, as far as procedure goes. One side got more votes and the other couldn’t get its act together.
Can’t remember who said it: “We can no longer allow the fate of Europe and the free world to be determined by 10,000 swing voters in Wisconsin.”
Anecdotal report form a friend who traveled to Puerta Vallarta recently – the place was teeming with Quebecois tourists. Probably the kind of “snow birds” who used to go to Florida.
Our Canadian son-in-law is well-established here in the Bay Area, but we wonder if his family will eschew visits. (His parents will take a mulligan for the upcoming arrival of a new grandson, however.. .)
And the Jersey shore in the summer.
From inception, the F-35 was designed with Foreign Military Sales (FMS) in mind. Generally, unit costs (PAUC – Program Acquisition Unit Costs) go down as sales volume increases. Congress was originally convinced (not including LOCKMART bribes) to move the plane forward because U.S. costs were being subsidized by a large FMS “business case”. Over the years, some nations changed their mind or were kicked-out of the club (Turkiye buying Russian surface-to-air missiles that could possibly defeat the F-35). Unit cost goes up. Sometimes an FMS item’s capabilities are intentionally dumbed-down before delivery. This is usually agreed to to limit technology proliferation or if we are selling to “allies of the moment”. The F-35 has many highly classified capabilities and technologies, which makes it a maintenance nightmare for a country without the industrial base, meaning that the planes have to go back to the states or a third party country. Other existing aircraft may be a better fit for some countries who might have been strong-armed to order the F-35 — to keep congress happy.
With the F35 it is even more complicated. As things stand significant parts of the structure are actually manufactured at Warton or Salmesbury by BAE Systems of the UK. No doubt at a cost they could be repatriated to the USA, but the cost would be immense.And all US equipment exported has a contract clause allowing the USA to forbid its use where they do not want. Over many years boring corporate lawyers like me were told not to worry about this because “ They will never exercise the right.” I’m not so sure now.
“They” never anticipated the whimsical evil of Donny Trump.
One of those third party countries for maintenance is probably Israel.
With the tensions there and Trump declarations, that may be a double whammy for sales of US munitions.
Both the US business community and the public need to stop hiding in their beds and get out and force the GQP in Congress that this madman and his entire administration needs to go for the good of the country.
Shouldn’t have elected him the first time.
This bubbling up of this topic has become increasingly vigorous the past three of four weeks. But even if some nations decide to scale back or halt their F-35 acquisitions, there may be U.S. export controls on some components of European fighter aircraft — engines, for example.
What I also find interesting is the attention being paid to tanks, self-propelled artillery, various types of armored vehicles, air defense systems, ship-borne missile launchers, etc. from across Europe and from Korea (production ongoing or planned in Australia and Poland). The U.S. also has a lot of government-owned land-warfare “stuff” in depots, that can be sold through FMS — which equates to serious potential work for contractors. (Go to Google Maps and search for “Sierra Army Depot”. Select the aerial view and look at the north half of the installation, working your way from west to east.)
Canada is a NATO member and has attendant obligations, which I presume include fighter jets. But, much of the population and wealth and economy of the US is within 350 miles or so of the Canadian border – including New York City and DC. Think what Canada could do (or threaten!!) with $19 billion worth of drones (which have been rather successful in the Ukraine war, I believe).
And on the other side, about or less than 50 miles from the border.
Except for agriculture and oil which are a few hundred miles from the border.
And as far as drones, etc., it was only box cutters that wreaked havoc on the US and the world.