Canada

There's nothing stopping Canada from getting the manuals and patching the software. Most of the FUD about it's performance abilities is propaganda. So getting them and just locking out Lockheed and the US would be a pretty good middle finger too.

Sweden also offered to get us building our own Gripens totally locally. The page for the bid is even still up

I assume we already have pilots trained in flying the F-35 at this point, which sucks if we're never getting them, though.

Canadian engineered military = quite formidable, I think.

Here's the bad news. It's not. Sure, we're good at peacekeeping, and we deploy to support (militarily) our allies. But we're using US gear and we're woefully underfunded because war budget has been declared a waste by even the parties who strut and posture about a strong military. We only needed to fulfill our NATO obligations, for decades, and even that has been a struggle we haven't won consistently with the low budget.

And while we're skilled enough and gung-ho, and our 1st Pioneers are about the most scary bunch of lumberjack commandos you'll ever see, there's just so few of them, and again their gear has been called old and out of repair by every administration campaigning because the last one never did a thing about it.

We're gonna need a lot of funding and training and gear to make up the shortfall in people and powpow toys, and that's a slice of gov pork that Milhouse is gonna latch onto knowing that he doesn't need an army once he gives the country over. Justin doesn't want to spend that, but he - and please God let it be Mark next - is really gonna have to.

But how do we sell it to the "hair guy bad" flatlanders steeped in 12 years of hating Justin for not being a pseudo-aristocratic milquetoast conservative?

So take the planes, send Trump the bill, when he acts confused you tell him he should really be more grateful about this

I mean, without American replacement parts I don't know how flyable they are. Stiffing the US on something is an option for next play, though.

Edit: So, correction. Interestingly it looks like the US is actually dependent on others for parts itself, and Japan has a good helping of all the parts in the whole plane being built domestically, so maybe not all is lost there. (This link looks legit, but disclaimer that I'm unfamiliar with it and you can't always tell at a glance post-AI)

That being said, the software is definitely closed-source, and all their design.

A Trump never pays his debts

Maybe he should get Mexico to pay for it.

While I do not believe the US will actually invade Canada, I don't imagine the F35 would be much help in that situation. I am sure there are remote access capabilities to cease their operation, at the very least.

the potential for an invasion is precisely the reason you don't want the f-35 around. that warbird is the most technologically dependent device ever crafted for warfare. it is deeply vulnerable to an adversary with the knowledge simply bricking it remotely and you're kidding yourself if you don't think the us military wouldn't brick all of them. the better plan is to train with prior gen jets and asymmetric combat using drones.