Hegseth wen back on what he said. The E7 has proven itself essential. They still see it as a stop gap, but essential. I think future orders are likely but in small batches, which is possible because of the 737 airframe. Its not dead.
So that gives the US 7 and the UK 3. Pretty terrible, but the UK has 3, may consider a 4th later, US is acquiring 2+7. But its pretty terrible for the US and the UK, they have sizeable air forces, and will likely be doing a lot of the fighting. But its still better than what they have currently which is zero.
Australia also has plans to replace the 6 it currently operates. Most likely with 6 newer more advanced versions, possibly more similar to the P8 airframe.
Realistically Canada's air force isn't big enough or modern enough to justify so much spending on high end E7 capability. It will be decades of decline and new platforms will take a long time to get up to speed and flying high hours, Even then the F-35 order is so small its barely training capability, not deployment capability, and beyond that there isn't any selected platform. They don't have existing AWACs capability (every existing E7 customer already was or had operated something like that and clearly saw themselves needful in that domain).
E7 key advantage is when the battle space is big and complex. If Canada is taking a self defence posture, that probably isn't them, their space is more vast open patrols. not battlespaces with thousands, or tens of thousands of contacts including civilian, lo munitions, commercial jets, ships, military ships, Ballistic missiles, surface to air systems etc.
Regarding E7 and Globaleye comparisons. Australia's E7 is still flying and running missions daily in the middle east from the UAE controlling the entire airspace in that area as an essential asset.
The UAE, which bought 5 Globaleyes, and is basically right in the middle of conflict, has instead deployed their globaleye, to India for exercises.
The UAE Air Force’s Saab GlobalEye AEW&C is participating in Exercise Tarang Shakti 2026 in India, bringing its airborne surveillance capability.
idrw.org
They are still trying to stand their capabilities up. And it really depends if you want a full platform based on battle management or something that does some light battle management but also patrol and monitoring.
E7 requires more humans, more money, more training, more active deployments. Its a bigger commitment. Its for bigger airspaces and bigger more complex more peer battlespaces.
Canada currently has no capabilities in that space, the US pressuring Canada to commit to a system itself hasn't been able to commit to is embarrassing.
