Love on the Rocks II: The Divorce is Official

C-295 hits American chill(click to view full) In our 2006 Valentine’s Day article “Love on the Rocks: CASA’s $600M Venezuelan Plane Sale In Heavy Turbulence,” DID discussed the blockage of a EUR 500 million sale from Spain to Venezuela under the USA’s ITAR regulations on military technology transfer. Despite the protests of the Spanish government, which claimed that the planes were not potential offensive weapons, the US held firm in its insistence that no ITAR-qualifying technologies could be part of the order for 10 EADS-CASA C-295 light transports, and 2 CN-235MPA Persuader advanced maritime patrol aircraft. DID’s article explained why this was a likely deal-breaker, in spite of vocal support for the sale from the Spanish government. Things worked out pretty much as predicted… Song Sung (Red, White, and) Blue CN-235MPA(click to view full) Our analysis said that the combination of engineering and political/commercial challenges would likely prove as fatal to this sale as they had to the sale of Super Tucano/ALX trainer and light attack aircraft from Brazil. As we explained, the engineering challenges were real, the US market was too important to EADS, and the shift toward a pan-European defense industry had ironically deprived Zapatero (a large proponent […]