The press is making it sound like the U.S. awarded this contract to France. There are any number of reasons why that charge is complete BS. Only parts of it will be made in France. Most of the cost of each aircraft is wrapped up in what goes INTO the aircraft, not the aircraft itself and all of that is PURE Northrop Grumman product, built in America and installed on the aircraft in Mobile, Alabama. Besides, the wings and tail surfaces of Boeing’s 767 are built in Italy and China respectively. There is no longer any such thing as an “American” car or a “Japanese car”. Those days are over. If you buy a Chrysler minivan like we have, it might have been made in Canada. If you buy a Honda, it was almost certainly built in Tenessee. If you buy a Mercedes, it was probably built in Georgia. It is now a global economy and that is NOT a bad thing for us because we can compete with anyone.
Similarly, as the article makes clear, the Airbus wings are made in Britain. Anybody who tries economic warfare by boycotting an unfriendly nation's manufactured products is on a hiding to nothing these days. There ain't no such thing as a 'national' manufactured product any more, at least for complex goods such as this.