Great question - so DRDC did an pretty good analysis of that in 2014 - and showed there was no cost savings to be had in the purchase profile Canada would consider. Having two separate training pipelines and overheads was simply uneconomical. You can read it here:

thehub.ca/wp-content/u...

You can use that line for every single option: Germany with the AFD in recent elections, France and the FN. You had the Germans try that argument on us to not consider the ROK KSIII subs for our Victoria class replacements, due to their proximity to China and internal turmoil.

I wrote a piece about this recently:
thehub.ca/2025/03/18/r...

Key point: "the basis of this policy move is not about the actual capability; rather, it’s a reflexive populist effort to assuage nationalist sentiments of anti-Americanism."

Quite the opposite - our current lack of capability is the dependency they are using as leverage. Canadians don't realize the abysmal state our air force is in: we've ignored allies' concerns that for a decade. Yet we're worked up about a hypothetical situation when our fighters might arrive?

Here's the link - we covered a wide variety of topics related to defence - I think its a pretty clear view that more needs to be done on defence
www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

And this morning, an appearance on The Current, hosted by @mattgalloway.bsky.social with Mark Norman and Jody Thomas.

I included the same point in an earlier draft of my article, but cut it for length. The irony is that it was the UK who stopped a sale of Gripen to Argentina. Germany tightly controlled Taurus and other weapons in Ukraine too. That's totally ignored in every discussion you see on this topic.

I'd bet it political gravity as Eliot Cohen suggested in his Atlantic Article. The growing spectre for an historic mid-term drubbing shakes loose enough moderate GOP members to start showing "moderate" credentials on really unpopular policies. Its a combination of legislative and legal gridlock

Its unfortunate that the article doesn't provide more context - because this was a major policy shift during his first term that had operational consequences for the fight against ISIS. Biden Admin restored some of the guardrails but this will obviously dismantle them. Its a live debate within DoD.

Beat me to the punch posting it.