Newly installed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked his defence minister, Bill Blair, to review Canada’s purchase of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) amid the country’s ongoing trade war with the US Trump Administration.
The move, initiated on 14 March 2025 just hours after Carney was sworn in and Blair appointed, was confirmed on 16 March 2025 by Canadian Department of National Defence spokesman Laurent de Casanove. The spokesman noted that Canada’s F-35 contract remains in place and that Canada has made a legal commitment to purchase an initial 16 F-35As. However, he told the Canadian press that Carney has asked Blair “to determine if the F-35 contract, as it stands, is the best investment for Canada, and if there are other options that could better meet Canada’s needs.
“We need to do our homework given the changing environment, and make sure that the contract in its current form is in the best interests of Canadians and the Canadian Armed Forces,” De Casanove was reported as saying.
Canada initially announced in March 2022 that it would purchase 88 F-35As to satisfy its Future Fighter Capability Project requirement and replace the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF’s) current F/A-18A/B Hornet fighters: a fleet that currently stands at around 89 aircraft. On 9 January 2023 the Canadian government announced that a deal had been signed to buy 88 F-35As, with first deliveries expected in 2026 and the first RCAF F-35 squadron to be operational in 2029.
However, prior to Carney becoming Canada’s new prime minister, US President Donald Trump had already opened a trade war with the country, even threatening economic coercion to press Canada into becoming the 51st US state: a stance that has sparked anger from both the Canadian government and the country’s general population.
Prior to the F-35A being selected by Canada, the other two aircraft vying for the requirement were the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet – another US contender – and the Swedish Saab Gripen E/F (Dassault and Eurofighter had respectively withdrawn the Rafale and Typhoon from the contest, citing concerns that Canadian interoperability and intelligence-sharing requirements were too extensive).
It is difficult to see how Canada could extricate itself from the F-35 programme without paying significant penalties. As previously mentioned, the country is already contractually committed to buying the first 16 aircraft, which is not a meaningfully sized fleet, and Canada is a Level 3 partner in the JSF programme, meaning that the country’s aerospace industry would take a significant hit should it withdraw.
However, Canada is not the first country to reassess how reliable a defence and security partner the United States is under President Trump. On 13 March it emerged that Portugal, which is not a part of the JSF programme but whose air force had expressed a preference for the F-35, was reassessing its options in the wake of Trump’s apparent lack of commitment or solidarity with Europe and NATO.
