The US prevents Pakistan's F-16s from carrying nuclear weapons. According to the article above, the planes won't allow any unrecognized weapons, and the sale stipulations permit surprise inspections and round the clock video surveillance of the aircraft.

So it's really not hard to understand why countries would be interested in the Gripen because they can own it outright and do with it what they please even if it's inferior to US weapons because the US weapons they'd be going up against aren't flown by the US but by other countries with similar restrictions on them.

The price tag also likely also a factor.

Certainly. Also, the Gripen is so much more economical to operate, just by the way it's designed...that it's stupid.

(Basically, it's designed with that as a top goal. Be simple/cheap to work on.)

Traditionally, I think the primary reason to buy US fighter jets at very high prices compared to the non-US competition has been that you also expect to get some amount of military protection back from the US worth much more (like 5-10x more) than that investment. Trump has turned this scheme upside down. We thank him for this.

(I also happen to think it may end up being a good thing for the US. It's cutting off a lot of the money supply to the US military complex. Isn't that a good thing?)

Can you please provide the citation that Trump has made less money in Arms deals compared to Obama in one term ? Usually, the media just complains that he is a prolific and excessive arms dealer. He just came back from India with yet another arms deal.

> He just came back from India with yet another arms deal.

Yes he did. No doubt about that. 3 Billion USD worth arms deal is definitely not the true potential of the Indo-US Strategic Defense Partnership though. It can be so much more! But it is a good start. It can be sped up if US can relax its norms in relation to transfer of technology.

The Rafale deal which India signed was a 7.87 Billion Euro deal [1]. India is going to modernize its defense capabilities this decade and this is the right time for the United States to relax its norms if it wants to be a major player. Especially with Make in India being given a thrust in Defense sector.

[1]: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/et-explains/rafale...

Well, if you mean the perception that the EU should buy less US and more internal to up % military investments.

I think Trump succeeded in that. Other than that, I don't think he succeeded at anything, if you can call that a win ;)

Any country that assumes buying US military hardware comes with some kind of US shield is an idiot. The balancing act inside and outside of NATO is interoperability and reliance

Protection money by any other name.

One of the better side effects of Trump is that the world has gained by finally stepping away from US reliance... American hegemony is no longer.