The frustration should be that in the US management is functionally incompetent.

Proposal: If we do it this way we won't have to spend as much money.

Counter: That's really hinky and it probably will blow up in our face.

Proposal: Yes but you can't prove it will. So it's what we're going to do.

Later: Blows up and goes over budget and takes two to three times longer.

It also doesn't help that the bid/contract process is skewed to select the lowest bidder.

You can always forget to add some margin here or there, or fail to plan for problems that might pop up. It's easy to game the system because sunk costs make it nearly impossible to switch once you've started.

you forgot the part where "Proposal" has been promoted twice based on a hurried launch and only "Counter" is left to take the blame for the messups.