American ones in general are troublesome for further third party sales, not just for Argentina. My point is, if we have to be a net-exporter in the future, our third-party sales should be free from end-user control of our suppliers. That means we do it one of the two ways:
- Either source parts from neutral countries like France, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, etc. who don't give a damn what we do once we give them the money
- Go the China way and start making everything in-house so that no one can tell us anything.
Given the Indian political tendency to look short-term at everything, option 1 seems more viable at this point. An AESA sourced from Israel till the arrival of Uttam AESA radar will make more sense for Argentina. Likewise, there is a chance of UK putting pressure on the USA in future if things get hairy between them and the Argentinians again. That would mean US turning the switch off for spares of GE-414s/404s.
We don't want that especially since we will get a bad reputation in the arms market.
Therefore, avoiding the Anglophones altogether in defence sourcing from hereon is the pragmatic way to go forward.