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I am not sure that the US want to share their next USAF platform with any foreign gov. I can only see that being plausible for the USN if for real both projects are split. So, to me there is still room for a joint project with the UK.
Fundamentally the UK are bringing almost nothing to the table that the Japanese actually want or need.
There are major diplomatic, industrial and technical drivers for the US to provide assistance to Japan and for Japan to turn to the US.
Cooperation with the US may or may not amount to something akin to JSF tier 1 partner level or something looser (some kind of technology sharing with a similar or different airframe).
There may also be some similar arrangement with the US available to the UK.
As I stated above Sweden may be a possible partner for the UK if goes is own path on this but hard to see that surviving the various issues that impact all major projects in this field.
Some kind of consolidation with the French/German/Spanish project (at least in terms of technology sharing etc.) would appear to be the only likely alternative to junior partnership with the US.
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