April 15, 2025, © Leeham News: It was inevitable: China has banned its airlines from accepting deliveries of Boeing airplanes.
The move is in retaliation against President Donald Trump’s boosting tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%. Beijing placed retaliatory tariffs on US goods to 125%. During the first Trump administration, the president placed tariffs of 25% on Chinese goods imported to the US. Beijing has allowed delivery of very few Boeing jets since then.
Illustration of many of the systems and components COMAC sources for its C919 jet. The smaller C909 regional jet is similarly sourced. Credit: Airframer.com.
The move once more blocks Boeing from the world’s second biggest aviation trade market. Additionally, Beijing blocked the import of US-made parts, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the actions.
COMAC, Airbus production may be hurt
The latter move could hurt production of the COMAC C919 and C909, two home-grown passenger airliners that use many US-sourced parts, systems and engines.
A 150-passenger jet, the C919 is a direct competitor to the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo. The 100-passenger C909 is a regional jet. Bloomberg does not mention that parts imports for the COMAC jets are affected; it only refers to parts imported for the Boeing jets. But neither does Bloomberg report if COMAC-bound parts are excluded.
A ban on imported US-sourced parts for Boeing jets could grind to a halt operations by Chinese carriers that rely on Boeing jets. Such happened with export sanctions on Russian airlines using Boeing and Airbus jets, the latter which source many of its systems and some engines from US companies.
Airbus assembles the A320neo family at a plant in Tianjin. It’s also unclear of Beijing’s move bans parts destined for these aircraft.
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