China News Service/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China are hurting a prized American company: Boeing.
Boeing’s stock fell 2.4% on Tuesday after Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources, that China ordered its airlines to stop taking deliveries of Boeing planes and American aircraft parts. After the Bloomberg story, Trump said on Truth Social that China “reneged on the big Boeing deal.”
Last week, China Southern Airlines stopped the sale of 10 of its used Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner planes, per a filing with Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange. China Southern had planned to replace its Dreamliners with bigger and newer planes, but it reversed its decision.
It is unclear whether the airline suspended its plan because of China’s order to stop buying planes from Boeing or because American products now carry a levy of 125%, which would raise the prices of new Boeing purchases.
On April 11, the airline filed notices saying it was suspending the sale of the planes. China Southern cited “matters affecting the property transaction.” Nikkei first reported the sale suspensions.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Eating into market share
China is an important market for the recovering US plane maker. Last year, it took a series of hits last year including a mass workers’ strike and financial losses. Any imposition on deliveries threatens its market share as it competes with Europe’s Airbus and newer entrants from China.
In its 2024 annual report filed in February, Boeing called China a “significant market” that would be affected by “deterioration in geopolitical or trade relations.” Boeing did not break down the company’s revenue by region.
“If we are unable to deliver aircraft to customers in China consistent with our assumptions and/or obtain additional orders from China in the future, we may experience reduced deliveries and/or lower market share,” the company wrote.
China Southern and Air China, both state-owned airlines, are among the 10 largest carriers in the world based on revenue.
A restriction on buying whole planes or parts from the US could lead to other Chinese government-owned carriers, such as China Eastern, Hainan Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, looking to France-based Airbus or domestic plane makers for new orders, further hurting Boeing.
Two of the world’s largest carriers, Ryanair and Delta, have previously said that they would delay Boeing deliveries if tariffs are imposed on their orders.
“We might delay them and hope that common sense will prevail,” Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, told the Financial Times in comments published Tuesday.
Boeing stock is down 12% so far this year.
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