So great that only Brazil was willing to buy them. And not at all because they were the best planes they could get, but because Brazil strongly prefers to not buy from the US and SAAB offered a great technology transfer deal.
Political reasons that may or may not make sense. Brazil would perhaps benefit in many ways by aligning themselves with the US, but for a variety of reasons they simply don't want to do that.
In the fickle Brazilian political environment, not aligning with the US might end up being a rather pragmatic move. As a politician, who knows how badly your successor will fuck up those ties?