Everyone who can get it(allied to the US), has already ordered it or will soon. The only exceptions are Sweden and France, who wanted to maintain some degree of strategic independence and not lose their jet fighter building capability. And Spain, though Spain was also kinda thinking of getting F-35 too(before Trump).
Canada was like Sweden and France, they could manufacture capable planes. But this is immensely expensive. Thats why Canada(and most countries) stopped doing it. This is why the F-35 is cheap, economies of scale, and why countries are willing to wait 5+ years to get it(while rafale and Gripen are basically readily available).
Europe wanted to coast through 5gen planes by using the F-35 while skipping ahead and developing, 2 completely different apparently, 6gen planes by 2040ish.
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The reason for Germany is that other aircraft, by choice, have not been certified for use with US nuclear weapons.
Nuke capability is irrelevant for most countries(rafale has a nuke capable variant, though only for French nukes). Take a look at its operators
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_operators
Everyone who can get it(allied to the US), has already ordered it or will soon. The only exceptions are Sweden and France, who wanted to maintain some degree of strategic independence and not lose their jet fighter building capability. And Spain, though Spain was also kinda thinking of getting F-35 too(before Trump).
Canada was like Sweden and France, they could manufacture capable planes. But this is immensely expensive. Thats why Canada(and most countries) stopped doing it. This is why the F-35 is cheap, economies of scale, and why countries are willing to wait 5+ years to get it(while rafale and Gripen are basically readily available).
Europe wanted to coast through 5gen planes by using the F-35 while skipping ahead and developing, 2 completely different apparently, 6gen planes by 2040ish.
Rafales are not readily available, the factories have a huge order backlog.