It's a good point but imo not really surprising when the President of the United States essentially threatened to invade Canada and Greenland.
This is classic multipolar politics, trade the two behemoths against each other so they don't roll over one day and just squish you. By alienating Canada and Europe we've handed China a great gift.
It's only getting started. Do you think Europe is going to use American networking equipment when America has shown that it will use its military against Europe? American grid technology?
Denmark ordered more in October. Canada talks a lot, but so far has done nothing concrete about reducing their order.
You would think they would urgently cancel and get Gripens and/or Rafales.
There are no other options. The F35 is the only gen5 fighter you can buy (Russia has one, but they can't make it and in any case Russia is invading Europe now and so not an option) , and as such it is going to be better than anything else you can get. Plus the cost of the F35 is similar or less than your other options.
The real question is what do those countries do when they have other options.
This is classic multipolar politics, trade the two behemoths against each other so they don't roll over one day and just squish you. By alienating Canada and Europe we've handed China a great gift.