Just because Gripen uses an American GE engine does not mean they are off limits. You actually have to go through the motions to try gaining US Congressional green light to know whether there would block the sales in any way. GE is a very influential American defence contractor with Congressmen in their pockets.
Countries like Thailand and South Africa are not exactly close allies of the US yet they operate the Gripens.
Look, EFT is a fantastic platform on its own but it needs to be backed up by numbers. My main concern is numbers.
Going for Hi without sorting Lo is a mistake, here's why:
The way our bureaucracy works: if takes a lot of pen pushing to get big deals through the chain. Once BAF ties up the bureaucracy with repayments for EFTs for years, the PMO, defence, finance and planning ministries will push back hard against any further deals for fighter jets in the next 10 years. The pen pushers will find ways to convince the PM to not approve any further fighter deals as defence spending is never their priority. Unlike BA and BN, BAF does not have the stomach fight it out.
1-2 squadrons of EFT is fantastic as a cherry on top if you already have 3-4 squadrons of Gripens/J-10s in service. It would be a nightmare for any air force to face EFTs conducting strike backed up by dozens of network connected Gripens/J-10s.
Again, I just hope a miracle happens and the EFT deal id quickly followed by orders for single engine fighters in good numbers.
I am not talking specifically about sanctions. The US is more than willing to sell to Bangladesh. Having a US equipment allows the US to exert pressure through backchannels and pull strings to their advantage. Especially when it involves the most expensive and strategic weapon in our armory. If we didn't have concerns with US strings, Bangladesh could have easily gone for F-16s at the risk of souring relationships with the Chinese- who are our biggest development and defense partners to date.
Both South Africa and Thailand are strategically aligned with the US, especially Thailand- who the US uses to counter Chinese influence in the region. Burmese have more issues against Thais than they have with us. Besides, both SA and Thailand use Gripen C/Ds which has the Volvo RM 12 engine (copy of GE Engine). The Brazilian E model uses the GE F414. Besides the engine, other vital components such as radar are also sourced from other countries. That could be a cause of a lot of strategic complications in the event of a souring relationship with our neighbors to the east.
I understand your concern about numbers. If we do go for EFTs- it is solely for the purpose of creating a "fear factor" against potential misadventure from our neighbors. The message to enemies is - We know we will be doomed, but we will take a few of you down with us before we go.
We will certainly not be any threat to our biggest neighbor with paltry 16 typhoons, but it is sufficient to pacify the Burmese. This also means that India will feel less threatened with this deal of 16 typhoons, as opposed to a deal for 48 Gripens with ToT. Hence, less likely to meddle in our business more than they already do. Given we are the weaker nation, that is something we also need to be wary of and play it cool.
As already mentioned by mb444, We have close relationship with UK and a large BD diaspora in UK. These factors are of strategic importance in the event of a conflict. A connection we don't have with Sweden.
One other key advantage procuring EFT would be having the range to be able to strike key cities like Yangoon without the need for air refueling.
The single-engine workhorse fighter replacements are indeed due. But at this time, we don't have the infrastructure, technical knowledge base to get ToT executed for a sophisticated platform-like Gripen as the Brazilians did.
I agree, the way it works in Bangladesh, I am guessing after this procurement, we will probably wait a good 8-10 years before going for single-engine platforms. Most likely after the F-7s start dropping from the skies in droves. That's how it works in BD. By then folks at BAC perhaps develop some semblance of the capability to support a ToT of a sophisticated 4.5 gen jet- be it Gripen or J-10 or something else.