America: My Time

Chapter 962 A Treacherous Scheme
Chapter 932 A Treacherous Scheme
"What? Are you sure those guys from Er Mao are going to sell us their Tu-160s again?" He was dumbfounded when he learned that Er Mao was interested in selling Tu-160s to him again. He didn't want to acquire more Tu-160s, as they were of no use to Gulfstream Aerospace. Two were enough for research, and there was no need to acquire more.

"Yes, the Er Mao family intends to sell the Tu-160 to us again!" The secretary answered calmly, showing no surprise at the deal or any excessive reaction to her boss's question.

"They're treating me like a fool. What would we do with the Tu-160s? They're not very useful. Unless the US military needs them, they'll just be a burden. Reject them and tell them that if they're willing to sell, we'll buy the Il-76s and An-124s, but at a lower price!" In John's view, the Russians' aircraft were still quite good. At least for now, the Russians had plenty of assets. They didn't need that many Il-76s; at least most of them could be left idle. And the An-124s—if they could get them from the Russians at a bargain price, it would be a good choice!

John wasn't worried that Er Mao would refuse his proposal. After all, Er Mao was having a hard time, and there weren't many buyers on the international market. For one thing, Er Mao had a large number of armored vehicles and tanks sitting idle, which Er Mao couldn't afford to maintain. However, John didn't go to buy them because he didn't lack such goods. Back in the old days of Russia, Australian shipping had obtained a lot of arms from Russia. In Africa, Jaguar Security Company had a huge weapons base with all kinds of Russian weapons.

The only thing John really cares about now is the Russian family's aircraft. After all, the Russians inherited a large amount of assets, and the most valuable of these assets are their planes. Maintaining them properly and setting up a transport company in Europe would be a good option, and the others could be leased out. These days, Europeans really need large transport planes.

Although they didn't sell their Tu-160s to John, Russia was still happy to agree to John's offer to sell them the An-124s and Il-76s. Just as John had expected, Russia was also having a headache over these aircraft; selling them wasn't easy. After all, not many countries needed such large transport planes, and airlines had even fewer in demand. Therefore, it wasn't easy for Russia to sell them off; they could only offer John a low price, or even greater discounts for bulk purchases. They were willing to sell their assets at rock-bottom prices, since they couldn't afford to maintain them themselves!

“Boss, if we acquire the transport aircraft from Er Mao and establish our own air transport company, it will also affect our own products!” Carol Tomey was troubled when she learned that her boss intended to acquire a large number of cheap transport aircraft from Er Mao. After all, this would affect Gulfstream Aerospace’s market and even the development of their large aircraft!

"No, you're completely wrong to think that way. Our large aircraft have a fixed market, but how much influence do you think we have on other markets? And at our current construction speed, when do you think we can meet Pan Am's needs? As for other market shares, we can only get a tiny fraction. Airbus, Boeing, and McDonnell Douglas are all our competitors. Under these circumstances, no matter how hard we try, we won't get many orders. Since that's the case, we can completely change our strategy. If we can't get the market, we can't let Airbus, Boeing, and McDonnell Douglas have an easy time either. Aren't these aircraft from the US the best opportunity? We can completely modify them, replace their avionics systems, and compete with those guys in the market. Tell me, if we release a large number of Il-76 passenger planes and An-124 transport planes on the leasing market, who will have the biggest impact!"

"Hiss!" When she heard her boss's words, Carol Tomei couldn't help but gasp. Her boss was indeed as cunning and treacherous as ever. She could even think of such a vicious trick. She could imagine what the consequences would be if a large number of Il-76 modified passenger and transport planes appeared on the leasing market!
"Boss, but this will affect our production schedule, and even the manufacturing of large aircraft!"

"There will always be a price to pay, but your idea is flawed. We can halt production at the Fokker factory in Europe and use the proceeds to modify these large aircraft. Besides, the Fokker factory has always been a major problem; I don't believe these guys will remain under our control indefinitely. Most importantly, the Dutch aren't very supportive of Gulfstream Aerospace; our orders there are pitifully few. Since they can ignore us, we can abandon them too. The British are much better off; at least a large portion of their orders go to Gulfstream Aerospace. So we need to respond to them. The large aircraft manufacturing plant needs to be improved as quickly as possible; we absolutely cannot let the British have any ideas!"

Regarding the large aircraft orders, those Dutch guys didn't consider Gulfstream Aerospace's feelings, nor did they try their best to help Gulfstream Aerospace and Fokker secure more orders. They preferred to give the orders to Airbus or Boeing rather than Fokker and Gulfstream Aerospace. Under such circumstances, John naturally didn't intend to give them any face.

“I’m worried those guys will cause trouble again, after all, they already did it once!” Carol Tomey also had some concerns about Fokker; those guys still had a rift with the parent company, Gulfstream Aerospace. “Let them be. If they cause trouble again, just shut down the Fokker factory. The factory in England already has a certain production capacity, and with the factory in the US, we can fully meet market demand. The Fokker 100 production line in the Netherlands isn’t very useful. If they accept the Il-76 modification project, everything will be fine. If they don’t, then transfer the production line to England. I believe the British will give us good support. After the production line is transferred, we can consider selling them off as a package. After all, we don’t have that much energy to devote to them. Gulfstream Aerospace is under considerable pressure right now. The winter for US military-industrial enterprises is coming, and we must act decisively, eliminating all hidden dangers so that we can move forward with a lighter burden and ensure our smooth development as much as possible!”

This time, John was determined to eliminate this major hidden danger within Gulfstream Space. In the past, John had many concerns, but with the deliberate changes in recent years, Fokker's importance to Gulfstream Space has now been reduced to a minimum, or even dispensable. The British side can fully assume their responsibility.

"In that case, our relationship with the Netherlands would drop to a freezing point, and it could even affect ASMER."

John knew ASML's situation better than Carole Tomé, and smiled calmly, saying, "Don't worry, ASML has its own solutions, and Bell Labs isn't unprepared either. Now is the right time. Taiwan and China both have a sufficient number of lithography machines. Even if ASML causes some trouble at this point, it won't matter. At worst, we can just relocate ASML as well. Many people in Europe will be very happy. If the British knew, they would put a lot of effort into winning us over. And Germany is also a good option!"

Of course, if it really comes to that, Asma will also be affected, but the impact won't be too great, and everything will still be under control. At least John believes that everything is still within a controllable range. If Asma is affected, John will not compromise, but will carry out another major relocation to let everyone know that they cannot be threatened.

Hearing that even her boss didn't care, Carol Thomme naturally didn't say anything more. After all, she was the CEO of Gulfstream Aerospace and had nothing to do with Bell Labs. It was enough that she had reminded her boss. Now that her boss had made a decision, Carol Thomme's most important task was to deal with those guys from Falk.

Now that we have the talent from Er Mao's side, Gulfstream Aerospace's need for talent is not as urgent as it was at the beginning. So even if those guys are dissatisfied with the headquarters' requirements and insist on resisting, it will not affect the headquarters' decision or make the headquarters compromise with them. Now, Fokker is not that important to Gulfstream Aerospace!
There is no gain without sacrifice. Now is the best opportunity. We have sufficient reasons and the ability to deal with it. If we don't act now, when will we? If we don't resolve this hidden danger now, when will we?

Gulfstream Aerospace quickly issued a notice to make changes to the Fokker plant and issued a new task: the modification of the Il-76. Production was immediately halted, and engineers from the Ermao family were also sent to assist with the modification task.

It has to be said that Ermao acted swiftly. They seemed to be under immense pressure, selling 50 Il-76s and 6 An-124s to John Air at rock-bottom prices. This large transaction finally gave Ermao a breather. However, such a massive deal didn't come with much capital. Pan Am had driven the price down significantly, and their reasons were sound: these were secondhand aircraft, and the current market couldn't accommodate so many planes. Ermao understood how difficult the international market was, so even though they were somewhat reluctant, they ultimately completed the transaction and offered even greater discounts. This was because Pan Am had given them a small kickback, so everything was no longer a problem! This wasn't the first time Ermao had experienced something like this; they had gone through similar experiences many times since the Russian era.
(End of this chapter)