"Jim Macklin" wrote:

"James Robinson" wrote:

| As I recall, when the earlier proposals were made for tanker
| replacement, Airbus and their US partners had more US content than
| Boeing did. It's almost like the "Japanese" cars now mostly made in
| US assembly plants. It's not as cut and dried as you make it seem.

It all depends on what is meant by "US content?" If the
small parts are all US manufacture and the major airframe
parts are all French, you can't fix the airplane after
battle damage without the sheet metal parts.

That's true. On a 767, Boeing makes the flight deck, the forward fuselage,
the wings, the tail, and the engine nacelles. Pretty well everything else
is subcontracted to other companies in the US, Japan, Italy, the UK, and
Brazil.

I guess it comes to a point where you have to rely on allies, if you expect
them to buy any US equipment.