The all-out trade war that ensued between Canada and the US Trump Administration on the evening of 21 August has plunged the Royal Canadian Air Force’s much vexed future fighter plans into further disarray – and may have pushed Canada closer to adopting a future mixed fleet consisting of F-35As and Gripen Es.
The programme to provide the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) with a new fighter aircraft, which has already gone through 16 years of messy machinations, has been thrown into further disarray by an all-out trade war breaking out between the United States and Canada.
Such is the acrimony behind the situation that, although Canada officially has 18 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters on order, what the RCAF will ultimately end up with is far from clear, with the prospect of a mixed F-35A/Gripen E fleet looking increasingly likely as a result of a belligerent US trade policy.
Trade negotiators from the two countries had been engaged in intense talks in recent weeks after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on nearly CAD 28 billion (EUR 17.34 billion) of Canadian imports by 19 August 2026. While the imposition of those tariffs had been paused amid reports that the negotiations were going well, on the evening of 21 August Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had clearly seen enough of US attempts to dictate Canadian economic policy.
“In recent weeks we made important progress toward improving Canada’s position as having the best deal in the world with the US,” Carney stated. “However, that progress has not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians. As a result, this evening, I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the US and have directed Canada’s negotiators to return to Ottawa. They have worked hard, in good faith, to defend the interests of Canadians throughout these negotiations up until the very last minute. However, last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic and called into question the reliability of any deal.”
Ever since a remarkable speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January 2026, in which he argued that “the middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”, Carney has been the one world leader prepared to stand up to the coercion that characterises the Trump Administration’s foreign policy. However, while the majority of Canadians support him in that, despite the economic hardships it might bring them, it presents a particular problem for the RCAF.
In July 2010 the Conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced plans to procure 65 F-35As to replace the RCAF’s ageing CF-188 Hornet fleet, but this decision soon ran into trouble for having never seriously considered any alternatives. Thus, when the Liberal Party’s Justin Trudeau became prime minister in November 2015, it was announced that Canada would seek alternatives, leading to the launch of the Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP) in 2017.
While a number of manufacturers initially made bids under the FFCP, that field of competitors soon began to be whittled down. Dassault, which had bid its Rafale, withdrew in November 2018, stating that the RCAF’s interoperability, security and intelligence-sharing constraints under the US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) were too difficult and costly to overcome. Less than a year later, in August 2019, the Eurofighter Typhoon was withdrawn from the FFCP contest, with Airbus Defence and Space and the UK Ministry of Defence also citing issues with complying with NORAD intelligence-sharing requirements as well as unviable requirements under the required Canadian industrial technological benefits (ITB) framework.
Then, in December 2021, the Canadian government eliminated the Boeing F/A-18 Block III Super Hornet from the FFCP competition, with Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) in effect stating that the Super Hornet had not met programme requirements on grounds of capability, cost, and economic benefits.
Thus, by March 2022 the field of FFCP candidates had narrowed to just two options: the Lockheed Martin F-35A and the Saab Gripen E. On 28 March 2022 the Canadian government announced that it had again selected the F-35A for the RCAF’s 88-aircraft requirement, with first deliveries planned for 2025.
However, by March 2025, with Trump having begun his second presidential term in January of that year with the zealous imposition of tariffs worldwide, economic tensions between Ottawa and Washington, DC, were building. That came alongside reports of additional delays and rising costs in the F-35 programme, with the result being that on 14 March 2025 Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair initiated another review into Canada’s F-35 procurement: a review that effectively continues to this day.
On 3 September 2025 the US Government Accountability Office issued a report on the F-35 programme stating that the costs related to the latest Block 4 versions of the aircraft were USD 6 billion over budget and that the programme was at least five years behind schedule, primarily driven by issues with the F-35’s Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) effort, which covers a suite of hardware and software upgrades that are critical to the Block 4 aircraft.
Meanwhile, Saab has continued to maintain a Gripen E campaign in Canada, despite having complained – like Dassault and Airbus – that Canada’s fighter contest has always been tilted unfairly in favour of the F-35. Saab has promised to set up an in-country Gripen E final assembly line if awarded a procurement contract and to work with Canadian industry to ensure that the aircraft can be locally maintained.
As it stands the Canadian government has ordered and paid for 16 Block 4 F-35As, although none of these aircraft have been delivered, including to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for training purposes. Further to this, Canada has made advance payments for long-lead parts for 14 additional aircraft, which would represent a total commitment to 30 F-35As.
While the Canadian government has issued no official indication that it is considering a mixed F-35A/Gripen E fleet, its ongoing review of the F-35 procurement is a tacit indication that a mixed fleet is certainly a possible outcome.
Meanwhile, the 27 May 2026 announcement by Carney that Canada has selected Saab’s GlobalEye platform as the preferred solution to its airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) requirement gives further impetus to the prospect of a future Gripen E/F purchase.
Yet that possibility is subject to further potential machinations, depending on how acrimonious the US-Canadian trade war gets, given that the Gripen E/F is powered by the F414-GE-39E turbofan developed by US company General Electric (GE) in partnership with GKN Aerospace, which licence-produces the powerplant as the RM16. If the US government decides that it wants to protect its expected 88-aircraft F-35A order from Sweden, it could theoretically deny an export licence for the F414-GE-39E turbofan to Canada.
Presenting to invited journalists, including this author from Warsight, during the Swedish Air Force’s Jubilee Air Show at Malmen Air Base in Linköping on 21 August 2026, Saab CEO Micael Johansson downplayed the possibility of a US export ban on the F414-GE-39E being sold to Canada.
“Of course, we need a licence from the US to sell the engine wherever we go on the Gripen side,” said Johansson, “but you have to remember, if the US is not selling their own platform completely to a country, this is absolutely [the] second best [outcome]. The US content in a in a Gripen fighter is quite substantial, so of course we have a great relationship with industry in the US and with GE, of course, and they are supporting us heavily. It would completely transform the level playing field if they started to use tools like that, but we have no signs of that. We have all the licences, so I’m just moving forward to assume that the rules of play will be fine, because then if they start doing that, that would be really detrimental. But we have no signs of that.”
Speaking about the prospect of a mixed Canadian F-35/Gripen E fleet, Johansson said, “I don’t think Canada will give up F-35 completely. They will, of course, go forward with that to some extent. I have no clue how many, but to have a combination of a dual fleet is perfect. You get the availability, the combat mass flying Gripen. You get to use all kinds of airstrips that you cannot use with F-35. You get a much lower footprint. So having both is actually from my perspective … a perfect match. But then I understand it’s politically extremely sensitive, and I don’t know how and when and if they will take such a dual-fleet position.
“But we have done a diligent job to build the hub in Canada,” Johansson continued, “so Canada has to decide: do we want the sovereign aerospace industry, and is that important? That’s the first decision. And then, if they take that decision, Sweden and Saab is the best choice. … It’s up to them to decide which way they want to go, and until they have done that, we will diligently work with them.”
In a basic comparison between the F-35 and the Gripen, the obvious difference is that the F-35 is a stealthy fifth-generation combat aircraft featuring radar-absorbent coatings and an internal weapon bay, whereas the Gripen is a 4.5-generation aircraft that lacks those features. Yet stealth characteristics carry a burden; the UK Royal Air Force, for example, has found that maintaining its F-35s’ stealth characteristics requires maintenance personnel with almost artisan-like qualities, while adding any external weapons effectively negates the true stealth capabilities of an F-35.
In terms of pure performance the F-35A has a top speed of Mach 1.6 (1,976 km/h) with a full internal weapons load and a combat radius of 1,093 km, while plans to equip the aircraft with two 600-gallon external drop tanks, which would compromise its stealth characteristics, could extend to aircraft’s combat radius to more than 2,000 km.
The Gripen E, meanwhile, has a top speed of Mach 2.0 and can achieve a combat radius of 800 km on internal fuel and 1,300 km with a single external drop tank.
Yet pure performance characteristics cannot adequately differentiate between the F-35 and Gripen E. While the unit cost between an F-35A and a Gripen E might not be that far apart, an analysis between the two aircraft published by Nordic Defence Sector (admittedly written by former Gripen pilot Mikael Grev, who nevertheless noted that he had endeavoured to be as objective as possible) noted that the F-35 has flight-hour costs about USD 40,000 per hour compared to about USD 10,000 for the Gripen E, according to open sources. The same analysis further noted that, while all F-35 maintenance must go through the United States, each Gripen operator can essentially be fully independent.
Then there is the issue of upgrades. In contrast with the F-35’s woes associated with the TR-3 effort as well as the aircraft’s radar upgrade, it is easy to see how a Saab salesperson could make hay in Canada with the Gripen E’s ‘code in the morning, fly in the afternoon’ ethos.
Beyond that, moreover, there is no doubt that, as a Swedish-designed fighter, the Gripen E has been designed from the outset to operate in the harsh conditions of the High North, as Canada will require.
Ultimately, however, decisions on national fighter procurements are rarely, if ever, made on qualitative performance and unit/lifecycle costs alone. That being the case, the prospects of the RCAF having a mixed F-35A/Gripen E fleet in future are only increasing as the Trump Administration attempts to impose its economic will on a Canada whose prime minister is rare among world leaders in digging in and holding his ground.
