China’s government has ordered domestic airlines to stop accepting deliveries of Boeing Co. jet parts as part of the nation’s escalating trade war with the United States, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
The country with the world’s second largest economy announced last week that it was raising tariffs from 84% to 125% on American goods in response to Donald Trump’s universal tariffs on China, which he capriciously escalated to 145%.
“The U.S.’ arbitrary imposition of abnormally high tariffs on China seriously violates international economic and trade rules, disregards the post-World War II global economic order built by the U.S. itself, and violates basic economic laws and common sense,” said a statement released by China’s Finance Ministry. “If the U.S. continues to impose higher tariffs, it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of world economy.”
Reuters reports that China’s top three airlines were scheduled to have a total of 179 Boeing planes delivered between 2025 and 2027. It’s unclear how many planes have already been paid for, and how many of those might elude Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
It’s a blow to Boeing, the U.S. aerospace manufacturer that only recently clawed its way back into the Chinese market after a series of crashes led to a stop in China’s purchasing.
“The risk that this escalating trade war tips the world into a recession is rising as the two largest and most powerful countries in the world continue to punch back with higher and higher tariffs,” Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital markets, wrote last week. “No one truly knows when this will end.”
Trump has pulled back from his initial tariff salvo against China, exempting some items produced there including electronics. But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC News on Sunday that those exemptions are merely temporary, further fueling the uncertainty around whatever the White House’s mysterious but genius strategy might be.
American consumers hoping to take advantage of loopholes to buy low-cost Chinese goods are out of luck, as Trump has issued executive orders that will close them by May 2.
That’s yet another move by Trump that’s unlikely to win support for his floundering trade war. New polling shows Americans are hoping that cowardly Republican lawmakers will step up and save us from Trump and his dreadful, destructive agenda.