Navantia loses a 5 billion dollar contract to sell 10 frigates to the United States to Italy's Fincantieri

Navantia has lost a contract for up to 5 billion dollars to sell up to 10 frigates to the United States to Italy's Fincantieri. The agreement is made up of an initial order of 700 million with an option to go up to 5,000. It was one of the most important orders that the Spanish shipyard hoped to close with the support of the Spanish government. The decision of Pedro Sanchez's government to withdraw the ship 'Blas de Lezo' as an escort for the 'USS Abraham Lincoln', based in Ferrol, in a military deployment to go around the world, could have motivated Washington's rejection, according to declarations of several military men to the Europa Press agency.  

Almost a year ago, on May 14th, the government of Pedro Sanchez ordered the frigate 'Mendez Nunez' to leave the escort of a US combat group in the Persian Gulf in view of the escalation of violence in the area between the United States and Iran. A decision that was not liked in Washington and that was criticized from the American Embassy in Spain. On that occasion, some voices already warned that this decision could have consequences in this contest. The United States has also criticised the government's plans to re-launch the Google tax, a tax on the giants of the digital economy that fully affects American companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

The US Navy announced the winner of the contest on Thursday in a press release, in which it explained that it had chosen the Italian model. The winning bid was from Marinette Marine Corporation (MMC), a company based in Wisconsin and owned by Fincantieri since 2009. The contract contemplates the construction of up to ten frigates for the US Navy in a first phase, in addition to a base ship. Optionally, the program could be extended with another nine ships, as it is a long-term project.

The selected ships are designed to be able to operate in all types of war situations and, as the US Navy points out in the statement, to be able to "conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare and information operations".

This competition dates back to 2017. Navantia presented itself in conjunction with the American company General Dynamics, where the AEGIS system, of American origin, was one of the guarantees for winning this contract. Navantia provided this system to the ships built in recent years, both those of the Spanish Navy, with the F-100 frigates, and the orders for Norway and Australia.  In addition, three other countries have this system: the USA, Japan and South Korea, which in principle made us think that this would also be a criterion to take into account when deciding on the Spanish proposal, something that in the end did not happen.