South Korea puts Canada on a plan of $ 20 billion in submarines and armored vehicles

Three South Korean companies have achieved a large stadium with millions of dollars to Canada, and promised to replace old -naval aging submarines, hand over more firepower to the army and help stimulate the industrial base of the defense in the country.

A detailed overview of unwanted proposals, which were delivered to the federal government in early March, was presented to CBC News.

Companies enjoy full support from the South Korean government, which is eager to expand the defense and security partnership that they signed with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau two years ago in Seoul.

CBC News has been granted exclusively and exclusively to senior Korean defense and security officials in addition to two defense stations and shipbuilding basins, which set their competitive differences in order to provide bids in the Canada submarine replacement program.

Hanwha Ocean and Hyundai Heavy Industries made a detailed and joint offer of $ 20 billion to 24 billion dollars, and promised to present the first four submarines by 2035, which is the current deadline for the Canadian Navy to receive only one boat. It also put construction maintenance facilities in this country, which will employ Canadians.

Hanwha Aerospace, a sister company in the shipbuilding basin, has dropped separately detailed proposals to resume the army with large artillery, mobile and artillery made of missiles, similar to the United States HIMAR system. A larger group of armored vehicles also suggested filling the gaps that the army owns in fighting and defense vehicles.

Defense officials in South Korea said that these stadiums are equal to more than a billion dollars, depending on what the Canadian government chooses and comes with rapid delivery times and the possibility of establishing maintenance – and possible centers – possible -.

The proposals are a diplomatic batch and unprecedented companies to obtain Canada to buy its military equipment anywhere else from the United States and Europe.

“We are not thinking about this as one -time deal between the two countries. It is not a treatment for us,” Hyunki Cho Deputy Minister of Defense said in a recently translated interview. “If we succeed in conducting the sale, we will try to give our efforts to enhance the capabilities of the defense industry in Canada, in addition to enhancing defense cooperation.”

Canada is looking for purchasing options

Bidding was presented at a time when many Canadians – who are facing the Trump administration’s trade war and annexation threats – demanded that the federal government cancel the main military purchases from the United States, Including the F-35 Fighter program.

The liberal government ordered Prime Minister Mark Carnary to review the plan and hinted that Canada had received the plane that it already paid and searched elsewhere to fill the rest of the request. In total, Canada said it requires 88 advanced fighters.

Although it did not make a complete unwanted proposal, Coren Aerospace Industries (KAI) has expressed its interest in selling its F-50 fighter planes as a training plane that can quickly convert into a combat aircraft.

South Korea also started manufacturing its partnership ghost with Indonesia. However, Kai officials have not yet presented it to Canada.

Despite enthusiasm, there are deep doubts between defense officials, South Korea and foreign policy that Canada is serious in breaking its dependence on the defensive industrial complex in the United States.

During the recently concluded federal campaign, Carney has repeatedly explained the relationship with the United States has changed irreversible.

“The old relationship that we had with the United States was based on deepening integration between our economies, strict security cooperation and military cooperation,” Carney said on March 27 in Ottawa.

The liberal admitted just as the election campaign began that it was deep in negotiations to join the European Union’s defense plan – a partnership that would make Canada eligible to obtain common purchases with the allies on the continent.

South Korea’s defense experts indicate that Europe is still discovering how to re -deport with many defensive industries that need to be closed and reopened production lines since the end of the Cold War.

“The supply chain is weak in Europe,” Kayla Megong Kim, of the Korean Institute for Industrial Economy and Trade, told CBC News in Seoul.

“For example, Germany and France want to create their own weapons systems, but they are restricted. They cannot buy all the defense components they need from European countries. I think they need some time.”

Production bottlenecks – an aspect that he brought out starkly when the two countries rushed to armament Ukraine – some NATO allies to search elsewhere.

Poland is the most dramatic example.

Since 2022, Warsaw has signed between $ 16 billion and $ 22 billion in US contracts with South Korean companies. Many of these deals are divided into the black tiger K2, K9, self -drying and K239 chunmoo missile launchers into slices. Since then, other deals have been followed with Norway, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, Romania and the United Kingdom.

Recently, Australia jumped on board a program worth $ 6.19 billion to build 129 infantry fighting vehicles, many of which were built in the country of Commonwealth.

The South Korean Defense Minister Siuk Jong Jong said that the agreement with Poland was the achievement of persuading Western allies to look at a source other than traditional arms makers.

“Before the large contract signed with Poland, Korea’s reputation was not a large defensive source,” CBC News told CBC News. “However, with a huge contract signed with Poland and throughout the implementation of these contracts, many countries have found that Korea is able to provide high -quality products in time.”

Suk said the offers to help prepare manufacturing and maintenance facilities were essential in obtaining agreements.

Former President Yoon Sok Yol increased the country’s share of defense exports, to the extent that South Korea is on the right track to be the fourth largest weapons manufacturing company in the world by 2027.

“We have seen a significant and dramatic increase in the export volume in the defense sector” in the past few years.

As, the Canadian army faces a number of challenges – whether abroad or locally. I have struggled to extend the equipment to its power in Latvia, including modern anti -tank weapons, air defense and anti -attack technology.

It also lacks mobile artillery and missile -based artillery, which were the advantages of war between Ukraine and Russia.

The army currently owns 47 capitalist projects on the movement, Lothanant Jin. Mike Wright, the country’s highest soldier, Tell CBC News in February.

“The army that we have now is not the army we need for the future,” said Wright.

The defense expert said that there is not much time to replace the main systems.

“We have come here for several decades of governments that run the box on the road, and I think we are at the stage in which it was run out of the road,” said Dave Perry, head of the Canadian World Affairs Institute. “Our equipment – in some cases – literally calm down.”

He said that Seoul’s proposal, regardless of whether it is not desirable, deserves a serious study because it can fill some important gaps quickly, which is an important consideration because we do not know what a partnership between industrial defense with Europe will look like.

Perry said South Korea “is the place where some of our other allies are looking to fill the needs of capacity.

“They have already a busy record in the ability to provide huge amounts of equipment in a very short time. Canadian armed forces on the point that we have serious deficiencies to operate. We need to search for options that can meet at least some acquisition needs.”