Trump's Trade War Impacts F-35: Allies Reduce Orders, Canada Reconsiders $19 Billion Deal
Trump’s Trade War Comes for the F-35: Allies Cut Orders as Canada Rethinks $19B Deal
WASHINGTON — In an unintended consequence that Pentagon planners had long feared, President Trump’s escalating tariff war against key allies is triggering a quiet rebellion against America’s most lucrative weapons export: the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.
Switzerland announced last month that it would slash its planned purchase of the stealth fighters by six aircraft, citing a 610 million cost hike imposed by U.S. suppliers. Now, Canada—facing 25 percent tariffs on its exports to the United States—is openly questioning whether to proceed with a 19 billion contract for up to 88 F-35s.
The twin developments mark the first significant erosion of global F-35 demand since the program began. And defense analysts warn that the damage may spread.
“The F-35 has always been sold as more than a fighter jet,” said Rebecca Grant, a defense analyst at IRIS Independent Research. “It is a political instrument — a binding tie between the United States and its closest allies. Tariffs and trade threats sever that tie. And once severed, it is extraordinarily difficult to repair.”
The Swiss decision, finalized in March, was initially attributed to budget pressures. But documents obtained by Swiss media revealed a more uncomfortable truth: the United States had unilaterally raised the price of key components, including the jet’s Pratt & Whitney engine and Northrop Grumman’s advanced sensor suite .
Bern had approved a 6 billion Swiss franc budget for 36 F-35As in a 2020 referendum. By late 2025, the same 36 jets would have cost nearly 7.1 billion francs. Rather than request additional funds from voters, the Swiss Federal Council quietly cut the order to 30 aircraft .
“A reduction under 36 aircraft has negative consequences for performance and sustainability,” the Council admitted in its official statement. Nonetheless, it proceeded. A full contract cancellation, officials said, “was not an option” — but the decision to buy fewer American jets was final .
Swiss officials also announced that any future air defense systems would be “preferentially produced in Europe” to reduce supply chain dependence on the United States .
That language has become familiar in Ottawa, where Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is conducting a yearlong review of Canada’s F-35 commitment — a review that was supposed to conclude last summer and still has no end date .
Canada signed a contract in 2023 to purchase 88 F-35As from Lockheed Martin. Sixteen are already in production. The first jet is scheduled for delivery later this year; a Royal Canadian Air Force commander recently traveled to Texas to sign its fuselage bulkhead in a traditional ceremony .
But the remaining 72 fighters are very much in doubt.
“We live in a different world,” Stephen Fuhr, the secretary of state responsible for defense procurement, told CBC News. “What’s being reviewed is what the future looks like” .
The “different world” Fuhr referenced is one in which President Trump has threatened 25 percent tariffs on Canadian auto and aluminum exports, questioned the value of the NORAD alliance, and repeatedly suggested that the United States might “reconsider the northern border as a fully open economic line.”
Against that backdrop, the F-35 — an aircraft whose software updates, spare parts, and maintenance are entirely controlled by the U.S. government — has become a symbol of Canadian vulnerability.
“The question is not whether the F-35 has a ‘kill switch’ that would allow the Americans to remotely disable it,” said Philippe Lagassé, a defense expert at Carleton University. “Lockheed says no such switch exists. The real question is much simpler: if the United States decides to restrict software updates or withhold spare parts during a trade dispute, does Canada have any recourse? The answer is no” .
That concern has fueled a public campaign by Saab, the Swedish defense manufacturer, to sell Canada its JAS 39 Gripen fighter. Saab has formally offered 72 Gripens — plus six GlobalEye airborne early warning aircraft — promising 12,600 Canadian jobs and, crucially, “sovereign” control over the aircraft’s maintenance and upgrades .
A recent EKOS poll found that 43 percent of Canadians preferred purchasing the Gripen outright, while another 29 percent supported a mixed fleet of Gripens and F-35s. Only 13 percent supported proceeding with the full F-35 buy .
“Canada needs to walk a tightrope,” said Vincent Rigby, a former national security adviser to the Trudeau government. “We push back on the U.S. where we have to. We diversify where we have to. But we still have common interests — in particular the defense of North America” .
The United States has noticed — and is not pleased.
Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra warned in multiple interviews that reducing the F-35 order could force changes to NORAD, the binational command that protects North American airspace. If Canada fields fewer advanced fighters, Hoekstra suggested, American warplanes might need to patrol Canadian airspace more frequently .
The State Department later attempted to walk back the remarks, insisting that Hoekstra’s comments “were taken out of context” and that “filling that gap is not news, it is common sense” .
But the damage was done.
“If his end goal was to urge Canada to hurry up and make a decision, this achieves the exact opposite effect,” said Andrea Charron, director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba .
Some analysts argue that Canada’s review is largely performative — that the country has already invested too much in infrastructure and training to abandon the F-35 entirely. Sixteen jets are already in production. Pilots are in training. Air bases at Cold Lake and Bagotville are being reconfigured .
“A government that truly intended to walk away would slow this down, not accelerate it,” wrote defense analyst Andrew Latham in a recent assessment. “Ottawa has chosen the opposite direction” .
Others see genuine strategic realignment. Prime Minister Carney signaled as much in a major speech at the World Economic Forum, condemning “economic coercion by great powers” without naming the United States — and then doubling down on that message in a subsequent phone call with President Trump .
“I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney told reporters afterward .
If Canada does reduce its F-35 order, the most likely alternative is a split fleet: the 16 jets already in production, plus 72 Gripens. Supporters of this approach argue it would maintain interoperability with the United States while diversifying Canada’s defense supply chain.
Critics call it a logistical nightmare.
“A mixed fleet duplicates training pipelines,” Latham wrote. “It divides maintainers by airframe. It complicates basing and spares. Canada already struggles with personnel depth. A split fleet is not a clever hedge. It is a tax paid every day” .
Switzerland faced a similar calculation — and chose reduction over cancellation. The Swiss will now operate 30 F-35s instead of 36, accepting what its own government called “negative consequences for performance” as the price of budgetary and political reality .
The ripple effects for Lockheed Martin are real but not catastrophic. The F-35 program has more than 3,500 aircraft on order from a dozen countries. Losing six Swiss jets and potentially 72 Canadian ones would reduce that total by less than 3 percent.
But the symbolic damage is far greater.
“The F-35 is the most advanced weapons system in history,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the AeroDynamic Advisory. “It is also the most expensive. It requires absolute trust between the United States and its buyers. Tariffs, threats, and trade wars destroy that trust. And once destroyed, allies start looking at European or South Korean alternatives they would never have considered five years ago.”
Tokyo and Seoul are watching closely. So are several European capitals that have quietly inquired about the Gripen and the new South Korean KF-21 in recent months .
For now, Canada’s review continues without a deadline. The first 16 F-35s will arrive regardless, beginning later this year. The remaining 72 — and with them, the future of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation — remain an open question.
May you like
“We are taking the time we need to take to get it right,” Defense Minister David McGuinty told reporters last month .
What “right” means in an era of tariffs and trade wars, no one in Ottawa is yet willing to say.
