F35 Orders Getting Cancelled Left and Right in Canada, Europe and Nato

[Maruzo]

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/19/nx-s1...o-trump-gripen

Portugal cancels its 6 billion order of F35. Canada is seriously considering cancelling it's F35 orders and looking elsewhere for their air defense needs. They fear that the US might withhold vital software updates or block access to spare parts needed to maintain the operation of the aircraft.

Nato is also rumored to reconsider it's F35 orders due to Trump's handling of the Ukraine and the multiple tariffs he's imposing on many countries.

The market for American weapons has taken a drastic downturn after Trump took over.

I think more alarming is the lost of trust and reputation for American weasons under Trump's administration.

[EODguy]

F35 is a 5th gen aircraft and delivery to many countries is years away, yet the F47 is a 6th gen that is supposed to have a similar availability date. Many countries would rather have a 6th gen 4-7 years after they would have had the 5th gen delivered. Some countries are also low on funds and their prepayment for F35s will carry over to F47 without continuing payments at a later date depending upon DDTC (Congressional) approval, and some are butthurt over being forced to pay the same tariffs that they place on US goods....

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[Henn28]

Yep, with friends like us, who needs enemies?

I’m quite surprised we haven’t been tossed out of Five Eyes yet, since we can’t be trusted around Putin.

[Happy]

Originally Posted by Henn28

Yep, with friends like us, who needs enemies?

I’m good with a lack of enemies!


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ReVELaTiON 22:21

[EODguy]

I know that people don't like to acknowledge that all these other countries have been hitting the UNITED STATES with tariffs on our products for years, yet when we do matching/reciprocal tariffs we're the "bad guys"? If countries don't like getting tariffs placed on them because it's not good for their economies, but they were doing the same to us for years and years. Canada for example has been charging us 245% on all dairy products, France 100%+ on wine or the EU 50%+ on beef plus banning the import of chicken.

That means they were more like people taking advantage of the US than friends and although most countries dropped their F35 orders for the the other reasons I listed in my previous post 6th gen instead of 5th gen and the length of time it takes for approval by Congress for (FMS) Foreign Military Sales or the other route is through the Department of Commerce, than for tariff reasons.

My job handles this now and it's not uncommon for say the purchase of missiles that were approved by Congress say AMRAAM (block 7) production being stopped and (block 8) starting. The cost is different and the old approval doesn't work for the newer model, quantity, etc, so the request must be resubmitted. The relevant information on this activity can be found under (ITAR) International Traffic in Arms Regulation if anyone would like to see what kind of pain in the ass this process is...

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[80stech]

The dairy problem actually started with the US dumping milk into Canada. I have a few friends that were dairy farmers. I imagine there is more than you realize to most of those "everyone is ripping us off" stories. Automotive and unions is another one. Have you seen any of your documentaries on chicken??

Anyway when you say things like "Europe is Pathetic, "Let them kill each other off," and "we should never have let them rebuild after the war," you gotta expect that to have some impact on fighter jet sales. Just disgusting.

[Henn28]

Originally Posted by 80stech

The dairy problem actually started with the US dumping milk into Canada. I have a few friends that were dairy farmers. I imagine there is more than you realize to most of those "everyone is ripping us off" stories. Automotive and unions is another one. Have you seen any of your documentaries on chicken??

I agree. The US has historically levies just as many tariffs on other countries products as they have on ours. Sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not. Unraveling these reasons, cause and effect, etc. can rapidly devolve into partisanship and recriminations. It’s clear to me though that populists use tariffs for votes primarily, as part of a broader message their base. Unfortunately this base doesn’t benefit in any way historically from specific tariffs, but that’s not the point of them historically, or now. Case in point, the US taxpayer had to bail out the US farmers (mostly Midwest) to the tune of over $60B during trump’s first trade war. Since amount this was roughly the same amount collected effectively from US consumers from the tariffs, the US consumers paid double for being stupid. If protecting our farmers was important, maybe we should have just given $60b to them and called it a better investment.

The US has levied a 14% tariff on Canadian lumber since the early 80s. US lumber imports from Canada however, have steadily grown to the point where now we import roughly half of our softwood demand from our former friend and ally to the north. The lumbar industry died in the US not because of Canadian trees, but because the majority of US voters decided the spotted owl and its fellow public land forest dwellers were not worth killing off in search of cheap wood. This is only one example of there being a much, much bigger picture to the tariff issue that populist politicians won’t, or can’t incorporate into thier thinking and arguments. And yes, Canada surely levies tariffs on specific US products as do many other countries.

Regardless of why though, it seems pretty clear that tariffs, don’t, and never have solved the broader economic imbalances that some politicians pandering to a base claim they will. But as a targeted solution to specific imbalances and hostile trade policies, national security concerns, or ironically to bolster a strong climate policy by making products produced in countries with little to no climate policies more expensive, they should be considered. I say ironically because this is exactly what the US does: we export our dirty work and then bitch about things being too expensive. We don’t want to see it being made by kids in smoggy places, but we certainly don’t want to pay more for it.

As far as the F-35 goes, I would cancel my orders too if I was a country being crapped on by the trump administration. There are excellent 4th and 4.5 gen fighters out there to bridge the gap and that are easily the match of Russian and Chinese planes, and it’s a horribly bloated, expensive and compromised program. That isn’t to say it’s not a great platform though, but this is what misguided, populist trade wars result in.

We never exported the F-22, for national security reasons, I’m skeptical that we will export its replacement. It’s tough enough for us to protect our national secrets here in the US, Signal chats notwithstanding!

[80stech]

Yep, plus it's crazy that people on this BMW forum seem to know more than the Trump administration "specialists" for military, economic, climate, science and social issues!

The car Tariff is going to be the same problem because it will increase the price of the car as long as the parts are more expensive regardless of weather it's because of tariffing the cheaper parts or the parts being more expensive because they are made in the States (maybe with Tariffed materials and Union labour) which is why they are being made elsewhere in the first place! Any new factories being built are going to very highly mechanised and require way fewer workers so the union job creation part is not going to go well either. The only explanation that seems to at least partly fit is that Donald Trump wants to get rid of any competition for Elon Musk's Teslas. BTW I came across the "Polstar" as an alternative to the Tesla, I've never heard of it before but in fitting with being "Swedish" and understated, they haven't been advertising much!

[EODguy]

Originally Posted by 80stech

Yep, plus it's crazy that people on this BMW forum seem to know more than the Trump administration "specialists" for military, economic, climate, science and social issues!

The car Tariff is going to be the same problem because it will increase the price of the car as long as the parts are more expensive regardless of weather it's because of tariffing the cheaper parts or the parts being more expensive because they are made in the States (maybe with Tariffed materials and Union labour) which is why they are being made elsewhere in the first place! Any new factories being built are going to very highly mechanised and require way fewer workers so the union job creation part is not going to go well either. The only explanation that seems to at least partly fit is that Donald Trump wants to get rid of any competition for Elon Musk's Teslas. BTW I came across the "Polstar" as an alternative to the Tesla, I've never heard of it before but in fitting with being "Swedish" and understated, they haven't been advertising much!

Well my job is to handle a US Foreign Military Sales to Saudi Arabia and beforethat it was Honduras, Colombia and Iraq, so....

I do actually know what's going on with this subject. I don't know more than the administration, but I do know more than people basing their reasoning off of network news.

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[80stech]

Re: the "Signal chat." AFAIK Canada had a very successful sting operation working with the previous administration where we gave access to the info on same type of "encrypted" app that the Cartels, Russian mob and other assorted bad guys were not only using but going way overboard with their boasting thinking that no-one else could see it!