Boeing Needs China’s Business; Teeters on Trump’s Campaign Promises

Boeing Co Inc—yes, the airplane manufacturer—is the largest exporter in the United States, supporting upwards of 150,000 American jobs every single year, explains company vice chairman Ray Conner.

Furthermore, next year, customers in China are likely to receive approximately 30 percent of all Boeing’s top-selling 737 models and roughly 25 percent of all aircraft produced in Washington State and also South Carolina. Conner relayed this on Thursday at a National Committee on US-China Relations event, in New York.

He details, “Obviously these deliveries are very significant to the nearly 76,000 Boeing employees who design, assemble and support our commercial airplanes. China is enormously important to our success as a company and as a major U.S. exporter.”

But why is this important?

Well, as the previous chief executive officer of the Chicago-based company’s commercial aviation division, he adds, “The Chinese aviation market continues to grow, so we’re going to continue to see the number of U.S. jobs at Boeing and throughout our supply chain continue to grow as well. It’s also very significant to the 1.5 million people in jobs that are supported through our supply chain here in the U.S.”

And he must make note of these things, right now, because Boeing has long been a strong trendsetter for US-China relations; but with US President-elect Donald Trump threatening punitive tariffs on China, symbiosis between the world’s two largest economies could soon be in a trade war. This could result in Boeing losing a major portion of the 20-year projected $1 trillion global airplane market.

Now, it is equally important to note that Trump has not necessarily indicated—or even gestured—whether or not he plans to honor his campaign promises to impose tariffs on the largest trading nation on the planet (yes, China trades/exports more than the United States)—as they completed $627 billion in US trade in 2015, alone.

All that in mind, we must also note that Boeing projects that China will displace the United States as the largest aircraft and travel market in the world within the next two decades (as mentioned above). Looking specifically at the Communist nation, Air China Ltd., China Southern Airlines Co., and China Eastern Airlines Corp are their three largest state-owned carriers—and they are all expanding their fleets as a result of several decades of economic boom.