Brazil Eyes 20 More Swedish Fighter Jets, to Be Built at Home

Brazil · Defense

A defense relationship that began with a single big order a decade ago is deepening into something more durable: a fighter-jet partnership rooted in Brazilian factories.

Brazil has signaled interest in acquiring 20 additional Gripen fighter jets from Sweden’s Saab, Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson said on Thursday after meeting his Brazilian counterpart, José Múcio, in Stockholm. The aircraft, in the latest E and F models, would be manufactured in Brazil, Jonson told a joint press conference, and the expanded cooperation would include Saab setting up a research and development unit in the South American country.

Building more Swedish fighter jets in Brazil

The potential order would build on a landmark 2014 contract under which Brazil agreed to buy 36 Gripen jets, a mix of 28 single-seat E models and eight two-seat F models, for its air force. Deliveries began in 2020, and roughly a dozen aircraft have been handed over so far, with the remainder of the original batch expected by 2027.

Crucially, the jets are not simply imported: in 2023, Saab and Brazil’s Embraer opened a joint production line at Gavião Peixoto, in São Paulo state, and the first Gripen E assembled in Brazil was unveiled there earlier this year. Locating manufacturing and technology transfer in Brazil was central to the country’s original decision to pick the Gripen over the French Rafale and the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, and it is the same logic that frames a possible follow-on order.

A partnership that runs both ways

The defense ties between the two countries have become notably reciprocal. As Brazil weighs more Gripens, Sweden has selected Embraer’s C-390 Millennium as its next military transport aircraft, making the Nordic nation one of several European buyers of the Brazilian plane.

Saab this week rolled out the first two-seat Gripen F at its Linköping facility in Sweden, a variant developed with Brazil as launch customer and intended to combine pilot training with full combat capability. Brazil is the launch customer for the F-model, with Colombia and Thailand also having placed orders, underscoring how the Brazilian program has become a showcase for Saab’s export ambitions in Latin America and beyond.

Why it matters for the region

For Brazil, expanding the fleet would strengthen an air force that has long sought to modernize aging aircraft, while reinforcing a domestic aerospace industry anchored by Embraer, one of the world’s larger planemakers. The Gavião Peixoto line gives Saab a base from which to scale production and pursue further sales across the region, and Saab and Embraer have spoken of making it a Latin American hub for the fighter.

A final contract for the 20 additional jets has not been signed, and terms including price and timing remain to be settled. But the stated intent, paired with a new research unit on Brazilian soil, points to a partnership both governments increasingly treat as strategic rather than transactional.

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