Trump's critics will explain away the steep drop in the price of the biggest U.S. weapons program by claiming that increasing production delivered economies of scale, but nobody at Lockheed Martin thought the price would go down so fast. It was pressure from the Trump administration that drove it.
Share to twitterMedia coverage of President Trump is so consistently negative that a casual observer might easily conclude he has accomplished nothing constructive during his time in the White House. But here is an example of a major spending program where the President pledged to save billions of dollars and proceeded to do precisely that through tough negotiating and relentless pressure.
So he decided to do something about it. In fact, Trump began his campaign to lower the cost of F-35 even before he was inaugurated. In ahe wrote on December 12, 2016, the President-elect said “billions of dollars can and will be saved” by pressing contractors for a better deal. Lockheed Martin, the company building the plane, saw its share price plummet 5%, and CEO Marillyn Hewson soon found herself meeting with a grim Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort to explain why the fighter cost so much.
It turns out he was right. In the first production lot that his team negotiated, Lot 10, the price-tag for the Air Force version fell nearly 8% to $94 million. The cost of other variants for the Navy and Marine Corps fell too, cumulatively saving taxpayers $500 million on just that one production lot. Lockheed Martin hadn’t been planning to cut the price that far that fast, but after Trump’s criticism of the program it decided to sharpen its pencils and find savings fast.
So now we have a new “handshake agreement” disclosed last week that will carry the price-tag for the F-35A below $80 million when Lot 13 is reached. That’s less than the price of a new F-16, the legacy fighter that the F-35A was designed to replace, and the F-35A is a whole lot more capable.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
'Every hero becomes a bore at last'Analysis: Hillary Rodham Clinton could not stop him, and Robert Mueller so far has landed something less than a fatal blow. So the task of defeating Trump in 2020 may now fall to Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read more »
Faith in the Fed nudges Wall Street higherWall Street edged higher on Monday, supported by Facebook, Amazon and Apple, as ...
Read more »
Police: Mom intentionally drives into Michigan river; 3 deadSearchers pulled the bodies of a woman and her 9-year-old twin daughters from the water after she intentionally drove a car carrying them into a southwestern Michigan river, authorities said Tuesday. Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Chief Karianne Thomas said two other girls had been in the car
Read more »
'Not Donald Trump': Orlando paper announces its endorsement for president hours before Trump launches 2020 campaign'We'd even consider backing Trump if, say, he found the proverbial cure for cancer or—about as likely—changed the essence of who he is (he won't),' the article said.
Read more »
'Trump Baby' will greet Donald Trump at Orlando rally 'to tell Trump how many people hate him'The Trump Baby balloon will be one of several replicas made in the U.S., the British team behind the original blimp say.
Read more »