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Distrust is a very strong motivation to reject a bid. If Boeing had won the bid, the NSA would have armed themselves with a FISA court order, mandating Boeing to install malware in the fighter jets, along with a gag order forbidden Boeing to tell Brazil. Due to their massive internal audit problem, the one or the other rogue NSA contractor would end up selling off a copy of the specifications describing the backdoor to crime syndicates, who would then be able to blackmail the Brazilian government. To cut a long story short, it has now become impossible to buy any American technology product which contains proprietary software or hardware. It must now all be open source and open design and then reviewed by non-American experts at the expense of the American company trying to sell its gear.

Brazil did not state this publicly but everybody understood it that way. Boeing was definitely bound to install NSA malware in the fighter jets. Nobody has the slightest doubt about that.

The lavabit case warns against using proprietary American software or services that use it or simply cloud services located in the USA. We know that the NSA will issue a gag order and demand that the software or service provider installs backdoors without telling his foreign clients. If US-based technology companies want to be considered as potential candidates, they will have to surrender the entire source code for the software and the full design specifications for the hardware, and pay for non-American experts to fully inspect it. Otherwise, no foreign company in their right mind will buy their gear any longer. The NSA-inspired breach of trust pretty much signifies the beginning of the end for US-originated technology exports to the rest of the world.