Europe's Biggest Missile Maker MDBA Goes on a Spending Splurge
Europe's biggest missile maker plans to spend as much as €2.5 billion ($2.7 billion) in the next five years to lift production and will go on a hiring spree as the region refocuses on supporting local arms providers amid increasingly fraught trans-Atlantic relations.
MBDA Missile Systems, a venture between France's Airbus SE, BAE Systems Plc from the UK and Leonardo SpA of Italy, plans to bolster its workforce to 19,000 in 2025 by adding 2,600 employees, Chief Executive Office Eric Beranger said at a press conference in Paris on Monday. The company boasts an order backlog of €37 billion after the intake reached an all-time high of €13.4 billion last year, he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trac Intermodal preps 200K chassis for China container surge
A top executive with the largest provider of intermodal chassis says his company is ready for the coming crush of China container imports headed to the United States. 'We're preparing for a bounce back of volume this summer,' said Trac Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Jake Gilene, in an interview with FreightWaves. 'We're staying very close to our customers gathering their forecasting data, so we can see what they see. We are preparing now for volume that's coming in late June-early July.' For Trac, which maintains a fleet of 200,000 domestic, marine and specialty chassis, that means making sure there are available chassis in the right markets, and coordinating those efforts across all ports and terminals. After the pandemic supply chain crisis, Gilene said, Trac worked with major railroads to establish strategic chassis reserves.'Post-COVID, we began a strategic chassis reserve program where Trac worked with Union Pacific to set aside chassis at specified locations where it makes sense for our host and our customers. This was done in the event of a black swan event. We are actively looking to expand this in other markets where it makes sense,' Gilene said. To build up sufficient fleet resiliency, 'Trac has developed a number of key locations around the country where our usage data and customer demand would indicate the need for safety stock.' In addition to participating in 12 neutral chassis pools across the country, Trac operates four private pools on the West Coast with ocean carriers CMA CGM, Zim (NYSE: ZIM), Evergreen ( and Hong Kong-based Hede International Shipping. During the lull in China traffic precipitated by the trans-Pacific tariff dispute with Washington, Trac looked to reposition chassis where they could do the most good. Upgraded units sitting idle in California were moved to the Midwest to refresh fleets worn by winter is anticipating higher-than-normal container volumes come June. 'The ocean services that were suspended are being reinstated and schedules are now booked,' said Gilene. 'Carriers are swapping vessels into the eastbound trans-Pacific trade lane to bring in more TEUs. From our customer conversations and forecasting, it's a mix of goods that were ready to ship and some new factory production, but mostly new, reinstated production.' One component Trac will be watching closely is dwell time. 'Average dwell is six to seven days, and during COVID we saw that increase [by] two to four times, depending on the market. If the supply chain isn't making a quick turn, the dwell time is longer for where the chassis is going, impacting chassis availability.' The big unknown is how long the surge is going to last. 'We've seen varying timelines for backlog recovery. During COVID, a three-month supply chain shutdown took 18 months. Building on what we learned, we are proactively repairing additional chassis and are exploring reserve expansions where they make sense.' Gilene added that since the pandemic, more motor carriers have acquired their own chassis, making them less dependent on pools. The import surge could give Trac a needed boost. In December, Moody's revised its outlook for the company to negative, saying then that tariffs posed a risk to import volume more articles by Stuart Chirls world order: Ocean rates up 88% as shippers pounce on lower tariffs New week sees ocean container rates soar Dirtier ports will hurt jobs, US maritime revival: AAPA Texas port completes $625M ship channel deepening project The post Trac Intermodal preps 200K chassis for China container surge appeared first on FreightWaves. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Trump adds Ireland to trade ‘blacklist'
Donald Trump has added Ireland to the White House's official blacklist of countries for the nation's trade surplus with the US. Ireland joins fellow new entrant Switzerland in the US treasury's bad books, on a list that includes regular US targets including China, Japan, Germany, Vietnam and South Korea. Appearing on the watchlist puts Ireland, whose dominant industries are pharmaceuticals and technology, at the front of the queue of countries likely to attract Mr Trump's ire. If escalated, it can open the door to tariffs and other sanctions. The US president has previously singled out Ireland as a country whose trade surplus hurts the US economy. 'We do have a massive deficit with Ireland, because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away,' he told Micheál Martin, the Irish Taoiseach, in the Oval Office in March. He even considered putting a 200pc tariff on US pharmaceutical imports from Ireland. 'We don't want to do anything to hurt Ireland. We do want fairness,' he said. Ireland's goods exports to the US surged by 49pc in the first quarter of 2025 from the same period a year earlier, the country's statistics office reported this week, as exporters scrambled to get shipments off before any of Mr Trump's tariffs kicked in. The export surge fuelled a 9.7pc bounce in Ireland's GDP in the first quarter. Irish exports are under dire threat from Mr Trump's potential tariff of 50pc on goods imports from the EU. Dublin and other European capitals are now sweating on Brussels' negotiations with Washington to avoid this levy hitting the bloc in early July. On Friday, the German central bank warned that if the two sides did not strike a deal, Europe's biggest economy would remain mired in recession until 2027. German data issued on Friday showed a 1.4pc drop in factory output in April and a 10.3pc slump in German exports to the US from a month earlier, as pre-tariff, front-end loading of trans-Atlantic shipments came to a halt. The two sides' trade negotiators met in Paris this week. Maros Sefcovic, the EU trade commissioner, said afterwards that talks were 'advancing in the right direction at pace', while Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, declared himself 'pleased that negotiations are advancing quickly'. They have slightly more than four weeks until the expiry of a 90-day pause on Mr Trump's tariffs on July 9. The president has frequently expressed hostility towards the EU over its trade policies, but was peaceable towards a visiting Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, at a meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'We'll end up hopefully with a trade deal,' he told reporters. 'I'm OK with the tariffs, or we make a deal with the trade.' The US treasury's report on Friday – a twice-yearly 'Monitoring List of major trading partners whose currency practices and macroeconomic policies merit close attention' – had some advice for both Germany and Ireland. Dublin was urged to focus on boosting activity in its domestic economy', to help Ireland 'address its over-reliance' on export-focused multinational companies. Berlin was told that Germany's unbalanced trade with the US was caused by German businesses and consumers failing to open their wallets and spend their savings. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Trump adds Ireland to trade ‘blacklist'
Donald Trump has added Ireland to the White House's official blacklist of countries for the nation's trade surplus with the US. Ireland joins fellow new entrant Switzerland in the US treasury's bad books, on a list that includes regular US targets including China, Japan, Germany, Vietnam and South Korea. Appearing on the watchlist puts Ireland, whose dominant industries are pharmaceuticals and technology, at the front of the queue of countries likely to attract Mr Trump's ire. If escalated, it can open the door to tariffs and other sanctions. The US president has previously singled out Ireland as a country whose trade surplus hurts the US economy. 'We do have a massive deficit with Ireland, because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away,' he told Micheál Martin, the Irish Taoiseach, in the Oval Office in March. He even considered putting a 200pc tariff on US pharmaceutical imports from Ireland. 'We don't want to do anything to hurt Ireland. We do want fairness,' he said. Ireland's goods exports to the US surged by 49pc in the first quarter of 2025 from the same period a year earlier, the country's statistics office reported this week, as exporters scrambled to get shipments off before any of Mr Trump's tariffs kicked in. The export surge fuelled a 9.7pc bounce in Ireland's GDP in the first quarter. Irish exports are under dire threat from Mr Trump's potential tariff of 50pc on goods imports from the EU. Dublin and other European capitals are now sweating on Brussels' negotiations with Washington to avoid this levy hitting the bloc in early July. On Friday, the German central bank warned that if the two sides did not strike a deal, Europe's biggest economy would remain mired in recession until 2027. German data issued on Friday showed a 1.4pc drop in factory output in April and a 10.3pc slump in German exports to the US from a month earlier, as pre-tariff, front-end loading of trans-Atlantic shipments came to a halt. The two sides' trade negotiators met in Paris this week. Maros Sefcovic, the EU trade commissioner, said afterwards that talks were 'advancing in the right direction at pace', while Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, declared himself 'pleased that negotiations are advancing quickly'. They have slightly more than four weeks until the expiry of a 90-day pause on Mr Trump's tariffs on July 9. The president has frequently expressed hostility towards the EU over its trade policies, but was peaceable towards a visiting Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, at a meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'We'll end up hopefully with a trade deal,' he told reporters. 'I'm OK with the tariffs, or we make a deal with the trade.' The US treasury's report on Friday – a twice-yearly 'Monitoring List of major trading partners whose currency practices and macroeconomic policies merit close attention' – had some advice for both Germany and Ireland. Dublin was urged to focus on boosting activity in its domestic economy', to help Ireland 'address its over-reliance' on export-focused multinational companies. Berlin was told that Germany's unbalanced trade with the US was caused by German businesses and consumers failing to open their wallets and spend their savings.
