# America First may result in lost armament sales **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 16, 2025, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640 "2025-03-16T04:13:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/21 "2025-03-18T16:53:49Z")
5 posts were merged into an existing topic: [Trock Flightless Posts](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trock-flightless-posts/1015780/2) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/22 "2025-03-18T00:07:14Z")
ETA: @Chronos two posts up. Maybe for dumb artillery shells. After that the complexity of everything else needed for modern warfare is orders of magnitude greater than that of WW-II. With orders of magnitude longer and more complex international supply chains. The US has been trying since the Ukraine invasion (so ~3 years now) to increase the production rate of various expensive munitions like Patriot or ATACMS rounds. Ignoring the current administration’s shenanigans, the manufacturers hope to bring the new capacity online in another year or two. So 5 years in a big unified peacetime economy to make a material increment in production of rather basic modern stuff. Which suggests to me it’s more like 10 or 15 years in fragmented Europe while Russia is increasingly breathing down their neck and US economic vandalism is trying to usher in a worldwide Great Depression II. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/23 "2025-03-18T00:11:12Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1015780/2): > > I can’t help but to think how that isn’t a pro-Trump isolationist view point. Fuck them foreigners let them make their own weapons. Europe can free Ukraine. Trump might be thinking that, but if so, he’s not considering the possibility that some of those European-made weapons might end up pointed at him. ---
**Author:** ![TheTyrant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thetyrant/32/19111_2.png) [@TheTyrant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheTyrant)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/24 "2025-03-18T01:15:53Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Additionally, critical electronics (with their software) are sealed in black boxes that the customer Air Forces may not open. They need to be sent to authorized facilities regularly for maintenance and updates. I work on submarine sonar systems, and frankly this isn’t really a matter of the vendor not _wanting_ the customer to service equipment, but the fact that the customer is simply _incapable_ of doing it. It’s a combination of increasing system complexity and reduced training and documentation. When things get tight, the ILS money gets cut first–and there’s where training, documentation, and spare parts come from. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/26 "2025-03-18T02:33:00Z")
I find it odd you don’t see how odd it is that the Military-Industrial Complex allowed this to happen to themselves. The old theory was that they controlled the government, not vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/27 "2025-03-18T02:34:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I can’t help but remember how quickly the US ramped up arms production during World War II. If America could do it then, then the Free World can do it now. America in the late 1930s had a lot of underused production capacity that could be easily turned toward manufacturing the things of war. Also, the design-produce-field cycle was a lot shorter in those days - the Brewster Buffalo, a pre-WWII carrier-based fighter which started as a set of requirements in 1935, first flew in prototype by the end of 1937, started production middle of next year, was recognized as largely obsolete by late 1940 and production (of 509 units) had ceased by the time of Pearl Harbor. The Eurofighter Typhoon, on the other hand, started development in 1983, had a first prototype flight in 1994, started manufacture that same year, and is still in production over thirty years later with 609 examples built. An annual production of 20 fighters would probably be the equivalent of the combat losses of a bad week in a hot war against a near-peer nation. Modern weapon systems are more complex, harder to design, to qualify, to build, and to maintain than their WWII equivalents. It’s a tall order for Europe to play catchup under these conditions - which is not to say that the need isn’t there. ETA: Ninja’d more succinctly by @LSLGuy . ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/29 "2025-03-18T03:30:10Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > And the most important conclusion is that this is permanent. No new administration can reverse because the trust is permanently lost. At the very least it would take a long, long time to regain that trust. Generations. And the process could only even start after Trump and those like him were permanently rendered politically irrelevant. So for the people alive right now it might as well be “permanent”. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/30 "2025-03-18T04:03:17Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1015780/4): > > Did I read a different OP? Our military industrial complex is losing contracts due to Trump being an Idiot. This cost us jobs. Adversely affects our economy? I wrote the OP to flag that Trump’s America First policy was likely gong to cost a few billions in lost sales and therefore jobs. As a Canadian, that pleases me. I think the more businesses get harmed by Trump’s policies, the greater the possibility of a correction. In a plutocracy, it’s the ones with money who influence political leaders. And if Trump doesn’t correct and the US economy crashes, well, you get what you voted for. “Elections have consequences,” as some smart fellow said. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/32 "2025-03-18T04:23:22Z")
Yes, so? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/34 "2025-03-18T04:35:59Z")
No disagreement here. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/36 "2025-03-18T04:55:12Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > _Yet, besides more arms production, Europe desperately needs its rationalisation and consolidation. Europe has [about 170 major weapon systems](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/603872/EXPO_STU(2018)603872_EN.pdf) compared with about 30 for the US. Consolidation would mean agreeing that this kind of fighter plane should be produced in, say, Italy and Sweden, closing a factory in France, while that sort of air defence system should be produced in France and Britain, closing a factory in Germany. Imagine how easy that will be._ Yeah, that’s a massive issue. It would be political suicide for one nation to give up its jobs and benefits for another. People in Texas, by contrast, may not be thrilled about the F-16V being manufactured in South Carolina instead of Fort Worth, but at least it’s all still American jobs. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/37 "2025-03-18T14:11:30Z")
A major war today would deplete all these fancy weapons quickly, at which point- I don’t know what happens. I’m no expert, but I doubt it would be possible to get Willow Run cranking out a dozen F-35s a day. Everything was just much simpler then. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/38 "2025-03-18T14:40:50Z")
You are reading this from a strictly American perspective. The OP is a Canadian. Canada and other former US allies are in the process of divesting ourselves of our relations with, and the inherant dependancies on, the U.S. This is a rational and necessary response to the newly hostile US foriegn policy. The question, as I see it, is if the Trump administration and its supporters did not anticipate the affect of this on the very significant US arms export industry. I find it odd that you see this as some how about support for the he military industrial complex. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/39 "2025-03-18T14:43:42Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1015780/1): > > Oops, I didn’t understand you and others weren’t pro-free trade. This is just disingenuous sophistry and you know it. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/40 "2025-03-18T22:45:42Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > It sucks that China is probably going to take over the role left by the US in world leadership. What? No, the US is going to be the biggest bully around. China will gasp in awe at how oppressive we become. Europe will have to arm up to protect itself… from _us_. I’m only a little bit sarcastic. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I agree. Even if Trump vanished tomorrow, America has proven it’s just too unreliable to be trusted. Absolutely. Trump has royally fucked the US diplomatic position that will last decades after he’s gone - or the country is. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > ISTM the ideal would be to break the mess of the USA up into 5-7 countries. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > But rather that if each of them wasn’t big enough to be world dominating, neither would all of them. I’m starting to agree. I dont want the techno-monarchies the crazy texh guys want, but if my country is a fucked as it now seems, I’d almost rather admit it’s over and start new, preferably with some smaller pieces. Maybe Texas can be an independent country again. Not that I want the demise of my country, but this doesn’t feel like my country anymore. > [@Kropotkin](#): > > Do we need to consider how big business would transcend those boundaries to continue to seek its own ends to the detriment of the new regions? Oh absolutely. Multinational corporations are already a threat to democracy, their power will grow with more, smaller countries. I would hope to be in one of the countries that writes some solid protections for citizens and limits on corporations, but right now I would probably end up in Corporatistan. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/41 "2025-03-18T23:07:57Z")
Just announced: Australian PM Anthony Albanese and new Canadian PM Mark Carney formalised a $6.5 billion deal for Canada to purchase an Australian-made military missile detection system. I’m assuming this has been in the pipeline for some time, not a recent knee-jerk reaction. > **[Live: PM agrees to sell $6.5b missile detection system to Canada](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-19/federal-politics-live-blog-march-19/105069154?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web)** > > Anthony Albanese and new Canadian PM Mark Carney formalise a $6.5 billion deal for Canada to purchase an Australian-made military missile detection system. Follow live. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/42 "2025-03-18T23:12:24Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > What? No, the US is going to be the biggest bully around. China will gasp in awe at how oppressive we become. Europe will have to arm up to protect itself… from _us_. I’m only a little bit sarcastic. I think that’s what will happen, and I’m not even being sarcastic. I think we’ll see a Chinese/EU alliance against a _rabidly_ irrational, aggressive and tyrannical US that makes China look like a bastion of freedom and human rights in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/43 "2025-03-18T23:20:46Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I think that’s what will happen, and I’m not even being sarcastic. I think we’ll see a Chinese/EU alliance against a _rabidly_ irrational, aggressive and tyrannical US that makes China look like a bastion of freedom and human rights in comparison. This is what I hope happens, that the world’s democracies ally with China and every enemy of America they can find, to oppose the US. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/44 "2025-03-19T01:56:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It would increase security, at least in the short term; nukes are the _only_ deterrent that really works against major powers. There’s a complication. In the short term owning a couple of nukes _reduces_ your security, because you create nuclear _targets_ that can be overwhelmed by nations with hundreds or thousands of nuclear warheads. Cite: Actual nuclear expert Tom Nichols. Maybe this could be addressed by basing the early nukes in submarines. > > > John O'Grady @jhog667 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640/45 "2025-03-19T04:38:46Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Maybe this could be addressed by basing the early nukes in submarines. Or bury them as nuclear mines. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-first-may-result-in-lost-armament-sales/1015640.md?page=3)