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Canada will spend $15.2 billion on US-manufactured warplanes regardless of PM Justin Trudeau’s marketing campaign pledge
Ottawa will negotiate solely with US-based aerospace large Lockheed Martin for the acquisition of 88 F-35 plane, Canadian officers introduced in a Monday press convention.
The deal has an anticipated price ticket of $19 billion CAD ($15.2 billion USD) with the authorities characterizing it as a alternative of current forces reasonably than an growth of navy spending. It’s the fruits of a 12-year course of whereby Canada has sought to switch its outdated CF-18 jets.
In its profitable 2015 bid to oust Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper from energy, the Liberal celebration of present PM Justin Trudeau campaigned towards a controversial 2010 deal to accumulate F-35s, vowing to as an alternative pursue “open and clear competitors” as Canada updates its air drive.
“They clung to an plane that doesn’t work and is way from working,” Trudeau reiterated in 2016, bashing the Conservatives for his or her plan to obtain F-35s. His authorities nonetheless ultimately selected Lockheed Martin as most well-liked bidder, with Procurement Minister Filomena Tassi claiming on Monday “we’re in a unique place immediately.”
Whereas Washington and US-based arms vendor Lockheed Martin have touted the F-35 as some of the superior fighter jets ever developed, the venture has been a expensive one for US taxpayers, who’ve footed the invoice for a protracted sequence of delays, malfunctions and price overruns. Nonetheless, plenty of American allies have lined as much as purchase the aircraft.
Earlier this month, Berlin introduced the choice to switch its fleet of outdated Twister fighters with as much as 35 US-made F-35 stealth plane, with the native press saying it’s an “open secret” that Germany wants fashionable plane to hold US nuclear bombs saved within the nation in case of a battle.
In February, Finland additionally penned a multibillion-dollar deal to buy 64 F-35 jets to switch its present Hornet fleet, rejecting different choices from different planemakers together with Dassault Rafale of France and Eurofighter Hurricane within the UK.
A number of European international locations pledged to considerably increase their protection spending amid the continued Russian navy marketing campaign in Ukraine. Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Ukraine’s failure to implement the phrases of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia has now demanded that Ukraine formally declare itself a impartial nation that can by no means be part of the US-led NATO navy bloc. Kiev says the Russian offensive was fully unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the 2 republics by drive.
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