China halts all Boeing orders amid escalating tariff war with Trump, U.S.

China is stopping all jet orders from American airline manufacturer Boeing in response to tariffs issued by the Trump administration, which have reached as high as 145% on Chinese goods and products, according to a report from Bloomberg News.

This announcement coincides with China’s decision to impose a 125% tariff on American goods over the weekend, which would have approximately doubled the cost of U.S.-made aircraft and parts.

Shares of Boeing stock dropped by 3% early Tuesday in response to the announcement.

The report said it’s unclear whether 10 Boeing 737 Max aircraft preparing to enter Chinese fleets will be able to enter China. Boeing has delivered 18 commercial jets to Chinese carriers so far this year.

“This represents about 179 commercial airplanes for the top three Chinese carriers expected to be delivered over the next two years,” KIRO Newsradio traffic reporter Chris Sullivan said. “That represents about 0.02% of Boeing’s commercial backlog.”

Long-term impacts on Boeing from China’s halt

Aviation expert Richard Aboulafia told KIRO Newsradio that finding new customers for those commercial planes may not be an issue for Boeing given a higher global demand for planes since Boeing’s Machinist Union strike late last year. However, Boeing’s long-term results could be significantly impacted.

“In the medium and long term, they’re going to lose market share to Airbus and it’s about 20% of the world market moving forward, so that hurts,” Aboulafia said.

China is also halting orders on aircraft-related equipment and parts, which could affect their own domestic airplane production. In 2008, China established the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) in Shanghai with plans to design and build their own line of commercial planes to compete directly with Boeing and Airbus.

“China’s COMAC is delivering the C-909 regional jet and the C-919 mainline jet that competes directly with Boeing and Airbus as well. Both of those airplanes have a lot of U.S. content in them,” Aviation Expert Scott Hamilton explained. “Is China going to exempt those parts from any ban or any tariff? If they don’t do that, then that’s going to grind the production of their own domestically produced airplanes to a hault.”

Boeing previously forecasted that it would deliver nearly 9,000 planes to China—about 20% of the total—over the next two decades. The Chinese government’s ban could last as long as the current trade war.

“Trump’s term ends January 20, 2029, so there’s another three weeks into the following year, and we need to look at the impact on Boeing through that timeline because, at least constitutionally, we’re supposed to have a new President and not Trump on Jan. 20,” said Hamilton. “I would expect if these tariffs are still in place, then a new president will certainly remove them.”

KIRO Newsradio and MyNorthwest have reached out to Boeing for comment.

This is a developing story, check back for updates

Contributing: Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest

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