By Ellen Francis, Missy Ryan, Michael Birnbaum · The Washington Post (c) 2025
BRUSSELS – As President Donald Trump upends the United States’ foreign policy, negotiating closer relations with Russia, threatening NATO allies and pausing cooperation with Ukraine, Washington’s traditional partners – and best customers – are rethinking their dependence on American weapons systems.
From Canada to Europe, calls are growing to steer future defense spending away from U.S. equipment and toward their own industries, even as many concede there’s no quick fix after decades of dependence.
The U.S. pause of intelligence-sharing with Ukraine this month, and Trump’s threats to annex Canada and Greenland, have laid bare the risks of counting on the United States – and it raised concerns about whether Washington could ground jets or turn off launchers remotely as a pressure tactic.
Even ifsuch a “kill switch” is a myth, officials and analysts say, advanced U.S. systems such as fighter jets are so reliant on U.S. spare parts, software updates or data sharing that cutting access could effectively render some unusable. Nearly two-thirds of European arms imports in recent years came from the United States.
Several European countries have launched reviews of their U.S.-made equipment to assess how vulnerable they would be in a conflict with Russia if Trump cut off support, according to four senior European policymakers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Canada and Portugal say they’re reconsidering future orders of F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. And the European Union is largely freezing the United States out of new loan financing as the bloc scrambles to find hundreds of billions of euros for a military buildup in the next five years. Canada is in talks with the E.U. about plans to expand manufacturing, officials said, as America’s oldest and closest allies join forces in an attempt to shield themselves from Trump’s whims.
Given the scale of the U.S. defense industry, which is the world’s largest arms exporter, European officials acknowledge they’ll keep buying off-the-shelf U.S. weapons as they build up their own lagging capabilities. But the Trump administration’s unpredictability has sharpened their focus onupgrading their arsenals and developing their own production.
In announcing that Boeing would produce the F-47, the next-generation fighter jet, Trump said Friday the version sold to allies would have reduced capabilities, “because someday maybe they’re not our allies.”
Previous administrations have at times withheld military equipment from erstwhile customers. When the Islamic Revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979, the Carter administration cut off maintenance and spare parts for the U.S.-made planes flown by Iran’s air force.
After the Egyptian military ousted President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, the Obama administration froze shipments of jets, attack helicopters and other equipment. The hold was eventually lifted, but the experience propelledCairo to diversify its sourcing, from 80 percent investment in U.S. equipment to 30 percent today.
Yet Washington has taken such actions against alliance partners only rarely. The first Trump administration suspended Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program over Ankara’s acquisition of a Russian air defense system.
U.S. customers have buyer’s remorse
European policymakers worry that the U.S. assistance required to run the complex weaponry they’re already using – including antimissile systems, early-warning aircraft and combat drones – could degrade over time.
Rules on some systems require that maintenance and updates be performed by U.S. citizens, and equipment produced by European manufactures that includes U.S. components can also be subject to restrictions.
“It’s not as if President Trump could just push a button and all aircraft would fall from the sky,” one European official said. “But there is an issue of dependency,” particularly on intelligence sharing and communication links.
The U.S. industry’s pitch that American weapons are implicitly backed up by American guarantees is becoming a tough sell.
Some policymakers involved in decisions to purchase F-35s have said they would now choose differently.
“As one of the decision-makers behind Denmark’s purchase of F35’s, I regret it,” Rasmus Jarlov, chair of the Danish parliament’s defense committee, posted on social media. Denmark is boosting military spendingas Trump says Greenland needs better defenses and has vowed to “get” the island “one way or the other.”
Jarlov called for avoiding American weapons “if at all possible” going forward. “I can easily imagine a situation where the USA will demand Greenland from Denmark and will threaten to deactivate our weapons and let Russia attack us when we refuse,” he added. “… Buying American weapons is a security risk that we cannot run.”
When Trump was elected, European officials expected more pressure to raise defense spending. Many figured that placing orders for U.S. military hardware would meet demands while handing him trade wins of the kind he prizes.
But now, his gyrations on Russia policy have some reconsidering that approach. Anxiety peaked when Trump halted military aid and targeting intelligence to Ukraine to help fight off Russia, after his Oval Office clash with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The administration resumed the assistance within days, but that didn’t quash concerns. “That’s the whole point,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “People immediately said, ‘Oh, wait a second. You mean they could just turn it on and off like that?’
“Nations will be thinking, are they vulnerable to a U.S. policy decision that will cause them to have uncertainty about parts or networking?”
As Germany approved a mammoth spending plan this month, billboards from the German Aerospace Industries Association popped up in rail stations boasting “Defense made in Germany. For Germany’s independence.” European arms-makers, eyeing a bump from the extra money being redirected to defense, have called on the European Union to spend more on E.U. manufacturers.
Homegrown options
The E.U. executive branch has unveiled plans for a $163 billion loan program to help fast-track a military spending spree and joint procurement.
E.U. members can spend their national resources as they please, but the E.U. is prioritizing weapons made in the bloc. To qualify for this financing, at least 65 percent of the product’s cost would have to be spent in the European Union, Norway or Ukraine. The loans would be limited to defense companies headquartered in the bloc or countries that sign defense agreements with it, a list that doesn’t currently include the United States.
Complex weapons systems in which a supplier has “design authority” that restricts how it’s used and whether certain components can be substituted – for example, the U.S. Patriot air and missile defense system by Raytheon – would be ineligible.
Explaining the rationale, an E.U. official said “it would be a real problem if whatever equipment acquired by the member states cannot be used for their own defense, because somebody will object.”
E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas pointed to limitations on Ukraine’s use of weapons made abroad. “We have this opportunity window to really build up the European defense industry,” she told reporters. “In times of crisis, your military needs to really have free hands.”
It’s a boost for France, a major European arms exporter, which has long sought to limit new defense spending to E.U. companies, an approach opposed by countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, where industries are closely interlinked with manufacturers outside the bloc.
Whilesome continue to extol the virtues of the transatlantic arms partnership and hope it persists, many also want to diversify and work more closely with others such as Britain, Norway and Turkey.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters Thursday that he didn’t see U.S. weapons purchases as a security risk. Still, he said, European nations “would do well from being a little less dependent on the U.S. defense industry.”
Weaning off
An E.U. diplomat said some policymakers believed the bloc should “partially, if necessary,” keep new defense funding initiatives open to U.S. companies. “We are still very much dependent, whatever people say, for the next 10 years, for our security, on American presence in Europe,” he said, “be it their intelligence capabilities, their strategic heavy airlifts.”
While Europe makes alternatives for equipment such as combat aircraft, the defense sector is largely fragmented across the continent and doesn’t match the capacity of America’s behemoth industry. Building up key capabilities can take years.
“We’re in a very unconventional moment in history,” said Keith Webster, a former Pentagon official who heads the Defense and Aerospace Council of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “So I can understand where any nation buying from the United States would begin to think about the possibilities of being denied the ability to sustain a program.”
Still, officials and analysts say, there are other reasons to expect that Europe won’t be too quick to move away from American hardware.
Large U.S. defense firms, which have broad support in Congress and influence with the White House, will lobby to maintain their domination of global markets. U.S. arms sales reached a record high in 2024. Government-to-government sales totaled $118 billion, up 46 percent from the year before, and direct commercial sales hit $201 billion. With a dip in Russian sales, France now ranks second.
The widespread sales of U.S. arms pose another challenge: It’s difficult for NATO allies to wean themselves if they want to maintain interoperability. Many Eastern European nations are only slowly phasing out their Soviet-era arsenals. It’s also tricky for countries that are rushing to buy-off-the shelf systems to beef up quickly, such as Poland and the Baltic states bordering Russia.
“So if they’re serious about equipping Ukraine, if they’re serious about equipping themselves in a way that they haven’t today, they’re going to have to buy U.S.,” Webster said.
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Ryan and Birnbaum reported from Washington. Beatriz Ríos in Brussels and Kate Brady in Berlin contributed to this report.