On this week’s Defense & Aerospace Report Business Roundtable, sponsored by Bell, Dr. “Rocket” Ron Epstein of Bank of America Securities and Richard Aboulafia of the AeroDynamic advisory consultancy join host Vago Muradian to discuss a down week on Wall Street on energy worries as US and Iranian forces trade fire and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis rebels exert control over the Bab al-Mandab strike Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities; the US-Canada trade war as Ottawa seeks to attract $1 trillion in investment, positioning the country as a trade safe haven against President Trump’s volatility as it also seeks associate EU membership; Washington’s drive to resume trade ties with Russia even as Moscow continues to provoke Europe as the second Bulgarian arms depot catches fire and explodes since August and Reuters reported a US, UK and Norwegian operation in April interrupted — in real time — a Russian test of a new undersea system to disrupt seabed infrastructure near Norway’s Svalbard archipelago; France’s turn toward United Arab Emirates as a military partner on new weapons including the F5 version of Dassault’s Rafale fighter as Finance Minister Roland Lescure warned geopolitical risks including higher energy prices in the wake of the Iran war and bond market turmoil will drive up France’s debt servicing costs by 25 percent to 65 billion euros a year, squeezing everything from social to defense spending; Boeing and its engineers’ union send a tentative four-year agreement that would raise wages to 17,000 members for a vote as the current contract expires on Oct. 6; GE Aerospace’s proposed $11.5 billion acquisition of Consolidated Precision Products that would bolster the giant’s in-house capabilities as primes and suppliers work to bolster supply chains to meet surging commercial and defense demand; and reflections as America and the world commemorate the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000.
