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European nations and Canada are “pushing away” from the F-35, motivated by a desire for “strategic autonomy” and political friction with the Trump administration
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Spain officially canceled its F-35 purchase in August 2025, opting for European-built alternatives. Switzerland is now also reviewing its 36-jet deal after being hit with a “shocking” $1.3 billion price hike and new 39% U.S. tariffs, and recent reports suggest that Portugal has not opted to purchase the U.S. jets
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Instead of the F-35, they are increasingly looking to European alternatives, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
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Canada’s 88-jet deal is also in “limbo,” as PM Mark Carney, angered by Trump’s “51st state” comments and trade disputes, ordered a review of the 72 un-committed jets
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Technological and industrial sovereignty are significant reasons why some countries are opting not to purchase the F-35. Some European nations prioritize developing their own defense industries and technological bases. Buying American-made F-35s would make them dependent on US supply chains and could suppress the development of their own next-generation aircraft programs. …
Well, there’s the very real possibility of having to fight the americans, who install kill switches and make everything proprietary so you can’t make your own parts.
So, go without planes, or pay your most likely military enemy for the privilege of going without planes?
No credible expert believes that the US has any kind of “kill switch” in the F-35, for the record. Such a system would be almost impossible to completely conceal from the engineers who would have to maintain these planes in service and the risk of that being discovered and instantly tanking the entire project would far exceed any benefit. Remember, the point of the F-35 was to arm the whole of NATO with a single attack fighter. The US benefited plenty from the project as it was, they didn’t need to install kill switches, and back under Bush and Obama there was zero motivation for them to do so. People forget how long projects like the F-35 take. They didn’t just start building this thing yesterday. The plane first entered production in 2006, and that was after a lengthy design and development phase stretching back well into the nineties.
The concern is not that there might be a “kill switch”, but that the US insists on controlling the supply of firmware updates, which would represent a serious risk in its own right, not in a “planes falling out of the sky” way but definitely in a “We can continue to upgrade our planes while locking you out of upgrades” way. It’s the sort of thing that, if applied over a decade, could create a serious capability gap between the US and anyone else with the F-35.
NB: To clear up another point of confusion, it is very specifically the firmware that the US controls. Everyone can make their own parts, but they have to load US firmware onto those parts. This another reason why it would be basically impossible to conceal a kill-switch; everyone has the full technical package, they know what’s in this thing. Even a tripwire hidden in the firmware would still need some means to be remotely activated, which would be very obvious. This is a stealth plane, all forms of communication in and out are very, very tightly controlled. You can’t just slap an extra radio in there.
A kill switch strawman implies crashing the plane in mid air. It is fully 100% confirmed that every single time you turn the plane on, your plane talks with Lockheed Martin in order to obtain permission to turn on. Israel, by coincidence, is the only country allowed to bypass this permission loop, with a special version of the F35.
Any country not a slave colony of the empire would demand the same ownership functionality instead of disguising their colonial tribute with useless military hardware.
Every version of this claim that I have ever seen has been flatly refuted or denied by every credible source.
If you’d like to offer a source for this, I’d love to see it.
To some people, credible sources on government shutdown is the democrats fault for wanting free healthcare for illegal immigrants.
Just because something 100% factual wants to be suppressed doesn’t make the suppression credible sources. While F35s are free for Israel, there would not be a demand to customize the electronics as a deal breaker to accepting free aircraft with the F35I. All denials that F35s are “permission to use” diguised tributes to empire are complete lies. Denying that there is a kill switch is a distraction that its advanced avionics/electronics work only through LM permission.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2016/04/27/could-connectivity-failure-ground-f-35-it-s-complicated USAF concerns with the phone home system that Israel demanded to not be beholden to.
From your cited source;
…
(emphasis mine)
In short, the article you’re citing directly refutes your claim.
My claim was never a kill switch or remote control/detonation switch. That is what scum denies to distract from the point that the advanced electronics systems ((ALIS) requires permission every time they are turned on. I am not denying that you can still make a sporty trip to Epstein’s Island with the plane, if Canada were to resell it to you.
No. It doesn’t. The article that you cited directly disproves that claim. I pulled several relevant quotes, in the comment you literally just replied to, which you apparently either didn’t read, or lacked the capacity to understand.
I’m happy to have someone disagree with me and show their arguments for why they think I’m wrong, but if you’re going to throw out sources you haven’t read, then refuse to read the relevant parts of those sources when I spoonfeed them to you, we’re past the point of “discussion” or “argument” and well into “I could literally have a more enlightening conversation with my dog.”
Citation needed.