Panetta Presses Brazil to Buy Boeing Fighters

The New York Times ^ | April 25, 2012 | ELISABETH BUMILLER

[sukhoi-30mki]

Panetta Presses Brazil to Buy Boeing Fighters

RIO DE JANEIRO — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta pushed Brazil on Wednesday to buy $4 billion worth of Boeing-made Super Hornet fighter jets, saying the prospective sale reflected how important Brazil was to the United States.

In the first visit of an American defense secretary to the country in seven years, Mr. Panetta used a speech at Superior War College here to focus on smoothing a sometimes thorny relationship and promoting American weapons sales.

Brazil is deciding whether to buy 36 fighter jets worth about $4 billion in a competition between Boeing in the United States, Dassault Aviation in France and Saab in Sweden. Boeing makes the F/A-18 E/6 Super Hornet, Dassault makes the Rafale and Saab makes the Grippen.

Mr. Panetta’s appeal was unusually direct and reflected the Pentagon’s new attention to Brazil after the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, met earlier this month with President Obama at the White House. The two pledged to strengthen defense ties between their nations at a time when the United States is turning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and trying to build up military relationships in other parts of the world.

Mr. Panetta told an audience of Brazilian military officers at the war college that the Boeing offer had strong support in the United States Congress and “contains an unprecedented advanced technology sharing that is reserved for only our closest allies and partners.” He added that Brazil’s defense and aviation industries “would be able to transform their partnership with U.S. companies, and they would have the best opportunity to be able to move into worldwide markets.”

The Boeing sale is a priority for the American government — Secretary of State Hi

[cardinal4]

I always wondered why Embraer never got into the defense business beyond the trainer and refueling versions..

[sukhoi-30mki]

Just one factor-risk. Brazil does not have the purchase volumes of countries like China, South Korea, India or even Turkey to justify investing in development of engines, sensors, avionics and other associated systems.