Questions arise about Canada’s planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets due to the imminent threat of US tariffs

Published by Brent Patterson on February 6, 2025February 6, 2025

Photo: A mock-up of an F-35 at Rockcliffe Airport, Ottawa.

US president Donald Trump’s tariff war with Canada is raising questions about the Trudeau government’s $19 billion purchase of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets that would be assembled in Fort Worth, Texas.

CBC reports: “The government’s facing calls to reconsider or cancel major Canadian contracts with the U.S. including a more than $19-billion deal to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets with U.S. defence company Lockheed-Martin.”

Blair and Duclos say contract will not be ripped up

Global News notes: “One of the biggest joint Canada-U.S. projects, the $73.9 billion purchase of 88 F-35 fighter jets, is not a contract that would be ripped up, according to [Bill Blair] the minister [of defence].”

Blair says: “We’ve gone through a long process of selecting the F-35 fighter jet. We remain committed to that. My job was to make sure that the American industry and the American government understands the importance of our shared responsibility and relationship in getting that job done.”

Global New adds: “Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters on Monday [February 3], before the tariffs were paused, that the government was only looking at limiting non-defence federal contracts to Canadian firms as part of any retaliation.”

Carney comments on defence purchases

But CBC notes: “Liberal leadership contender Mark Carney says if he becomes prime minister [after March 9], he would meet the NATO defence spending benchmark two years ahead of the Trudeau government’s official target.”

The article adds: “To hit that target of two per cent of gross domestic product by 2030, he said Canada must move its defence spending back home. Carney said 80 per cent of defence purchases made by this country involve the U.S. and that has to change.”

Carney did not specify the F-35 in his comments. But it is possible that a different scenario has not been completely ruled out.

Eby asked about F-35 purchase

On Saturday February 1, Global News reporter Paul Johnson asked British Columbia NDP premier David Eby: “We are about to buy a bunch of surveillance planes from Boeing [16 P-8A Poseidon aircraft for $10 billion], replace our fighter jets in a multi-billion dollar deal from Lockheed Martin [$19 billion on 88 F-35s that will be assembled in Texas], might it not be time for Canada to start considering the timing and the terms of major investments in the American economy like that at this point?”

Eby responded: “The prime minister will speak for the national approach… For major defence expenditures, which I know is a priority for the Americans, for the president, he wants to see Canada putting additional money into defence, well, we are all happy to do that work together, but these tariffs will force Canada into procuring from other countries.”

Trudeau has not yet addressed this question, though the comments by Ministers Blair and Duclos suggest no change in policy.

TWZ: unclear how tariffs will affect the F-35

Still, Thomas Newdick, a defense writer with the US-based The War Zone (TWZ), has written: “What’s unclear at this point is whether the tariffs will affect the F-35 — as well as a raft of other military items that are sold between the United States and Canada. There have already been suggestions, however, that Canada might want to look elsewhere for its new fighters, in a snub to the United States. The future of Canada’s P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft procurement has also been questioned.”

US Department of Defense assessing impacts of tariffs on F-35s

That article adds: “In a comment provided to TWZ, Russell Goemaere, Public Affairs Officer at the F-35 Joint Program Office [at the US Department of Defense in Washington, DC] said: ‘At this time, we are assessing impacts of any tariffs and will work with the government and our industry partners on the way forward.’”

$1 billion of annual exports

More broadly, it is not clear if the threatened Trump tariffs will apply to the export of Canadian-made “military goods” to the United States and how it would impact the Defence Production Sharing Agreement (DPSA) between the two countries.

Two weeks ago, the Ottawa-based Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) commented: “CADSI is aware that any U.S. tariffs applied to Canadian #defenceexports would have a significant negative impact on our members, and on the highly integrated Canada-U.S. defence industrial base.”

Waterloo-based Project Ploughshares has estimated that the total annual value of Canadian military exports to the United States exceeds one billion dollars.

We continue to follow this.

Additional reading: Could Trump’s Tariffs Doom Canada’s F-35 Acquisition? (Peter Suciu, The National Interest, February 4, 2025).