Re: Defense companies boast products free of American components

Swarley · 2025-04-24T12:05:50.011Z

I believe, at this point, the damage is done. America’s defense industry will lose out on billions of dollars over the next couple decades, all because of the tantrum of one man. Staggering. We’ve not just walked away from, but flipped the bird to a continent of 450 million and a GDP of $20 trillion, and we’ve cozied up to a murderous dictator with a shrinking country of 144 million and a GDP of $2 trillion. Art of the deal. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/defence-companies-boast-trump-proof-weapons-are-free-of-us-parts-jr2gvbql6 From the article: Ames believes that Trump’s tariff policy may benefit the company by “once again averting eyes back to Europe for defense products, rather than into America.” “What you don’t want is, suddenly you need a fuel-filler cap and America won’t sell it to you, or they won’t pass the technology on. A lot of countries are very keen to see some form of localisation in the supply chain” he said.

Defense companies boast products free of American components

Herp derp I live 80 years in the past.

Daft. That's not what's going to happen. America must have a strong

Re: Herp derp I live 80 years in the past.

quozzel

Ring of Honor [21545]

TigerPulse: 100%

Posts: 12449

Joined: 2002

Apr 24, 2025, 8:34 AM

It's stupid and short-sighted and the American brand is indeed taking a pummeling at a time when we need stability and foreign investment. Everybody was shortening their supply chains as much as possible anyway and Western industry was well-aware China was a dying giant in the last stages of consumption and was reshoring at a rate greater than we were before WW2.

Then along came Donald, p!ssing everybody off and worse, roiling the markets. If there's one thing investors loathe, it's uncertainty and instability. And instantly this year, all that investment...is gone.

We were already reshoring industry on a massive scale. All Donald had to do to look like a hero was not eff that up...but the painfully dumb deplorable Donald did indeed go and eff that up, and in truly epic and spectacular fashion. I mean, taxing stuff like steel, aluminum, and copper while at the same time screaming for people to rebuild industry here in the US? Words cannot describe how much I've come to loathe the man and his idiot followers.

As far as the defense industries go, though, all those contracts were gone anyway. Traditional contractors have become dinosaurs in a land full of rats that eat dinosaur eggs. Russia's lost something like 20,000+ tanks and armored vehicles and close to a million men in Ukraine...and the biggest reason is drones. You can kill a multimillion-dollar tank with a $200 drone...and Ukraine has become a nation of garage-shop MacGyvers building drone swarms with 3D-printed local materials. They built 1.5 million of them last year...and are on pace to build 4.5 million this year.So Raytheon and Northrup Grumman and the like were on borrowed time anyway...I'd be looking more towards Palantir and Anduril, and the Euros are emphatically not kicking those companies out.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Liberals love them some defense contractors and hate EV's. Bizzaro world.***

You are being exceptionally obtuse this morning.***

Thanks to American presidential administrations since Clinton endorsed P.R.China’s entry into the WTO, every president (or, should I say, his handlers) whiffed on the strategic objective of maintaining redundancies in the supply chain for materials used to make America’s weapons and weapon systems.

Trump 45 had handlers, too. They undercut him at every opportunity.

Trump 47 knows the Administrative State’s game, and has taken the initiative to move quickly to start the process to re-create a ‘redundant’ supply chain (to complement the supply chain from non-American sources. Thus, the first (big steps) have started to re-secure America’s ability to make our own weapons even if foreign suppliers decide to put embargoes on us.

If done gradually, then the unfriendly national suppliers would have time to figure out a way to thwart America’s attempts to end-run them. By doing it suddenly, our foreign supply chain is stumbling to figure out a way to put up embargoes; to wit, P.R.C. trying to bully Korea into not reselling P.R.C. products which contain rare earth minerals to America. Instead of working silently and powerfully behind the #cenes to pressure Korea, P.R.C. has had an awkward public threat-negotiation to intimidate Korea.

*******

As for American weapons suffering from a ‘brand’ problem, watch and see the huge pending arms deal between American and India. Rumors of America’s demise as a global arms supplier powerhouse are greatly exaggerated.

Defense companies boast products free of American components