From Loren Thompson, Forbes: “There's a saying in Washington that if new presidents don't move out on making changes the first year they are in office, the changes never happen. They get captured by the system -- the bureaucrats, the lobbyists -- and whatever it was they thought they were going to achieve during their presidency gets lost in the shuffle.”
From Anthony Capaccio & Alex Wayne, Bloomberg: “President-elect Donald Trump upended years of Pentagon procurement planning with a tweet announcing he had asked Boeing Co. to price an upgrade of its F-18 Super Hornet jet that could replace Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35, the most expensive U.S. weapon system ever.”
Donald Trump Thinks He Can Beat the F-35
From Joseph Trevithick, War Is Boring: “Between the official requirements, existing investments and the sheer number of defense contractors and foreign allies involved in the program, the jet has a healthy supply of supporters inside and out of governments around the world. The Super Hornet is also in no way, shape or form “comparable” to the Pentagon’s desired, final-production F-35. The two aircraft reflect very different eras and different views on the future of aerial warfare.”
For the business community, the big question is whether Trump will be able to increase defense spending to pay for all his campaign promises. Even before the election, we told you it would be difficult for Trump or Hillary Clinton to raise the defense budget since Pentagon budget caps remain law until 2021, even though there are ways around them. Trump's picking Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C. — a deficit hawk — as his director of the White House Office of Management and Budget — is a signal that a massive, Reagan-esque build-up is not likely unless, as several investment analysts pointed out this week, cuts in other non-defense government programs are found. We've noticed that despite early hopes that the spigot would be wide open, defense executives appear to be tamping expectations, particularly after Trump's tweets about the high cost of a new Air Force One and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Canada opted to buy Super Hornets instead of F-35s, for now. Two jets caught fire, an Air Force F-35A in September, and a Marine Corps F-35B in October. The issue that caused the latter has been identified, a faulty wiring bracket, and is being fixed by installing a new bracket, said Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, the program boss, this week. Earlier this month President-Elect Trump called the program "out of control," a point disputed by Pentagon officials. But at the same time, the project might need an additional $532 million to finish flight testing. Next year, the Marine Corps is planning to send F-35 to Japan and Air Force might send the jet to Europe.