Honeywell expands ITAR-free defense push to win Europe business

Honeywell Aerospace is preparing to unveil a new ITAR-free product for the international defense market at the Farnborough Airshow in Britain, while assigning a combined 1,000 engineers in Poland and the Czech Republic to build technologies that avoid restricted U.S. content. The push is designed to win business from European buyers who want systems less exposed to American export controls, and it shows how far allied procurement is moving toward supply chains that can be sold, re-sold and upgraded with fewer legal bottlenecks.

Chief executive Jim Currier has said the company wants to operate “like a European company” in parts of the business and to develop “non-ITAR technology” for local strategy. That posture reflects a market where European defense contractors and suppliers increasingly want ITAR-free parts because they worry Washington could block re-export of weapons or components that contain sensitive U.S. technology. For Honeywell, the shift is not a side project: its defense segment accounts for about 40% of revenue, and international sales made up about 30% of defense revenue last year, up from roughly 18% in 2020.

The timing is shaped by a broader European rearmament cycle. NATO leaders said at the 2026 Ankara Summit that European Allies and Canada had increased core defense investments by more than $139 billion since the commitment made at The Hague in 2025 to reach 5% of gross domestic product by 2035. Washington is pressing European governments to spend more on defense, but the Ukraine war has also sharpened the appeal of supply chains that can move faster and face fewer regulatory choke points. That combination is pushing buyers to scrutinize not just price and performance, but whether a system can be procured without U.S. export-control complications.

Honeywell’s move also comes just days after Honeywell Aerospace completed its spin-off from Honeywell Technologies on June 29, 2026, and began trading on Nasdaq. The separation gives the aerospace and defense business a more direct strategic focus at a moment when it is leaning harder into export-control-light product development. The company is also pursuing ITAR-free technologies for Asia-Pacific partners including Japan and South Korea, suggesting the strategy is broader than Europe alone.

Farnborough International Airshow 2026 runs from July 20 to 24, giving Honeywell a high-profile venue to signal how aggressively it plans to compete in a defense market where allied customers are increasingly trying to reduce dependence on U.S. rules without abandoning U.S. hardware altogether.