Boeing’s CEO is trying to find buyers for 50 planes after Chinese airlines cancelled their orders amid Trump’s trade war

Boeing CEO, Kelly Orberg, said on Wednesday that China in China is not expected to prevent the company’s financial recovery, and do not prevent it from reaching the targets of delivery of aircraft with Chinese airlines that are now refusing to accept Boeing aircraft.

Speaking of CNBC, Orberg said that Boeing has three aircraft in China ready for delivery, but it has returned two of them to Seattle so far because the Chinese airlines that ordered the planes “stopped delivering aircraft due to the customs tariff environment.”

Beijing increased the import tax on American goods to 125 % this month in response to US president Donald Trump, who raised the tariff on products made in China to 145 %. China’s tariff will twice the cost of Boeing passenger aircraft, the largest exporter of the United States, for tens of millions of dollars.

While the company planned to complete 50 requests for Chinese airlines this year, Orberg said that Boeing was “evaluating” options actively to convert these planes into other interested buyers.

He said during a collective call with analysts: “It is an unfortunate situation, but we have many customers who want to hand over in the short term, so we plan to redirect the offer to the stable demand, and we will not continue to build aircraft for customers who will not take them.”

The confrontation between Washington and Beijing is a threat to Boeing from what it was a decade ago, when about a quarter of the giant aircraft from the Aerospace Giant went to China, according to Jefferies Investment Banking.

The company’s business in China decreased in 2019, when the country became the first to highlight all Boeing 737 aircraft as a maximum after a pair of fatal accidents that killed 346 people less than five months. Chinese airlines have not resumed maximum flights until January 2023, late for other transport companies in other countries.

Bianan West, financial manager, said that China is currently about 10 % of the accumulation of requests worth $ 500 billion, which Boeing expects to take in the next decade.

West said that about 70 % of the company’s commercial aircraft expect to deliver in 2025 for international customers. He said that if the definitions in countries alongside China caused revenge and postponing the acceptance of aircraft, “we expect to see additional pressure” on Boeing’s cash supply.

“Given our site as an important source of the United States, the free trade policy across the space is still very important for us,” West said.

Trump seeks definitions to face what he describes that unfair commercial policies of other countries come at a time when Boeing is looking to convert the page into a set of problems, including a panel blowing of a maximum of 737 flying and the work strike that stopped production last year. The company witnessed a decrease in its revenues and the value of the shares sharply.

Ordrag said that the financial results in the first quarter informed Boeing on Wednesday that the company’s recovery plan “is in full swing and signs of being effective, albeit early.”

Boeing recorded a modified loss of 49 cents per share for $ 19.5 billion in revenues. The results topped the expectations of the analysts included in the Zacks Investment Research, which called for a loss of $ 1.54 per share on the revenue of 19.29 billion dollars.

The company significantly reduced its cash burning to about 2.29 billion dollars from about 4 billion dollars in the previous year.

Boeing shares, based in Armington, Virginia, increased by 6.6 % in the afternoon trading.

Trump declared the sweeping tariffs on April 2, which caused panic in the financial markets and generated recession. The president put a partial contract for a period of 90 days on import taxes, but it has already increased his sharp definition against China.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessin said in a speech on Tuesday that the situation was not sustainable and expected to “cancel the escalation” in the trade war between the largest economists in the world.

This story was originally appeared on Fortune.com

2025-04-23 20:57:00