Report: Mack Trucks Drops IDF Tender After Winning It

YERUSHALAYIM
Israeli soldiers near IDF tanks stationed near the Israel-Gaza border. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/File)

Truck manufacturer Mack has decided to back out of a tender it won to supply trucks to the IDF, Globes reported. Israeli officials suspect that the reason was pressure on the company from its parent corporation, Swedish auto manufacturer Volvo. Mack truck themselves are manufactured in the United States.

The trucks to be supplied would have been used for transportation of tanks and other heavy equipment. Mack won the tender several months ago, competing against several other vehicle manufacturers, but has yet to sign the contract on the deal. According to Globes, the deal is worth about $50 million, with each unit costing $140,000. The IDF has suffered a shortage of transport vehicles for several years, and decided to buy a large amount in a single purchase in order to lower costs.

The last major purchase of transport vehicles was several years ago, when the IDF bought 100 of the vehicles from Navistar in the U.S. The Defense Ministry decided to hold the tender for the new purchase in the U.S., in order to pay for the vehicles out of U.S. military aid. Although owned by Volvo, Mack is a U.S. company, and IDF officials are surprised that the company is participating in what appears to be a boycott of Israel, in violation of U.S. law, the report said.

The report quoted sources at Volvo as saying that Mack had decided to withdraw from the tender, even though it won the right to sell the IDF the vehicles, for its own reasons. “It’s not uncommon for one of the parties in deals like these to withdraw from it,” the source said.

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