> Russian rockets as well just few years back because it was cheaper

Your link says that US had no homegrown option, when it used russian rockets.

The only part that matches “because cheaper”, was atlas rockets using soviet engines, but that also had additional reasoning of keeping russian rocket engineers away from iran and north Korea.

So overall, US definitely will subsidise a US company. (If not spacex, then other company which demonstrates competence) Strategically it is a must have capability. If you depend on others, you open your self up for bunch of risks.

US had space shuttle which was the better in most of the metrics compared to Russia except cost. They knowingly discarded it because Russian rockets were cheaper.

That not what we’re talking about though. I’m sure they might use their rockets but they wouldn’t support their manufacturer the way they do SpaceX.

Even if there were superior foreign options NASA/etc. would rather work with an American company as long as it’s not hopelessly behind.

Did you even read my comment? NASA was ahead with Space Shuttle in terms of technology(at least not hopelessly behind) but still selected Russian rockets because of lower price. And working with Europe is definitely better for NASA in terms of PR than working with Russia.