Boeing should not be a “unintentional episode” of the trade war

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Kelly Ortberg, Managing Director of Boeing, said he was working with the Trump government to ensure that the company is not a “unintentional consequence” of the trade war with China, which indicates that the countries buy more aircraft to reduce their trade deficits with the USA.

In an interview with the Financial Times, OrtbergWho took over the helm in August also said that the introduction of a new aircraft, which is expected to replace its best -selling 737 Max, has no direct priority, and said the “market is not finished now”.

As the greatest exporter of America, Boeing was caught in the crossfire of the volatile trade war by Donald Trump, who put the decades of delicate status of the aerospace industry in the foreground, endangered aircraft deliveries and exert the supply chains.

Boeing was ready to restart deliveries to Chinese airlines in the next month after Washington was hit with Beijing two weeks ago to reduce the tariffs. But on Friday President Donald Trump accuses China of Backtracking With regard to the agreement, the possibility of a Chinese reaction.

The relationship between the countries is “dynamic,” said Ortberg, adding that he had learned not to “be able to hyperventilate because it will probably change tomorrow”.

“In the end, this will lead to new trade agreements – that will be okay,” he said.

“It’s just about cope with this period of uncertainty.

The trade war came at a critical time for the industry veteran, which in April 2025 described Boeing as the “turnaround year”. Ortberg, a former managing director of Boeing supplier Rockwell Collins, faced a number of security and production crises before the discouraging task of rehabilitation of the aerospace and defense group.

Just a few weeks after the start of the work, Ortberg was forced to collect more than $ 21 billion in new equity in order to support the balance of Boeing and deal with one Strike through his largest union This provided the production of the 737 max.

Ortberg said Boeing would pay “less than 500 million US dollars for the year” for the imports required to build the company’s products. The costs that Boeing hopes will disappear after the negotiation of bilateral agreements. Remanding tariffs from countries such as China represent a greater threat because they could cause the airlines to reject the delivery.

Nevertheless, Ortberg said that he was confident that the geopolitical tensions would not delay the recovery of Boeing.

The company has a strong gap of orders, he said and added that aircraft for countries that even want a trade weight with the United States are “a very large dollar article, so they would be a great opportunity to compensate”.

The recovery of Boeing, said Ortberg, was based on the stabilization of the company with a first focus. The aircraft manufacturer approaches the production of 38 737 Maxes per month, the upper limit defined by the US Federal Aviation Administration after the blowout of a door panel last year. Boeing must the approval of the supervisory authorities for the construction of narrow body aircraft at a higher price-aims at 42 per month to generate cash in the second half of the year.

“As soon as we arrive and I have a stable performance in our government portfolio,” said Ortberg, “I will claim the victory over the stabilization part of the process.”

“You can call that to turn the corner.”

Orthberg dampened expectations that Boeing would soon start a fuel-efficient successor for Max, although the airlines have difficulty reaching their sustainability goals.

Boeing, he said, was not in a financial position to invest in a new aircraft program. The market was also not finished because the customers of airlines still had to struggle with the durability of the current motor technology. The airlines, he said, “would certainly not want to jump to a little more risky and difficult”.

The company would be ready, he said as “we have resources, technology and the ability to do so”.

“It is not today, it’s not tomorrow.”

Ortberg said separately that he was expecting Elon Muschus I would probably step down from his daily participation in building a new Air Force after leaving the Trump administration. The billionaire at the beginning of this year Boeing started working on two long delayed New jets for the US President and asked Trump to accept a 400 million dollar gift from an alternative jet from Qatar.

Some of the requirements for the aircraft were almost impossible to reach, said Ortberg, and Musk helped Boeing to “work with the customer in order to change some of these requirements to more appropriate requirements that … still met the mission of the aircraft”.