Aircraft manufacturer Boeing will make its first major sale to China in nearly a decade under an agreement for 200 planes announced Friday after with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The deal represents a breakthrough in the U.S. aerospace company’s efforts to reenter a market once central to its long-term growth.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned from Beijing, Trump said China also reserved the right to buy as many as 750 Boeing aircraft as part of the deal. Boeing confirmed the 200-plane order later Friday but did not specify the types of planes or provide any other details.
鈥淲e had a very successful trip to China and accomplished our major goal of reopening the China market to orders for Boeing aircraft,” the company said in a statement, adding that looked forward to “continually addressing China鈥檚 aircraft demand.鈥�
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg was among of American CEOs who joined Trump during the president’s trip to Beijing, seeking to sell products and services to China.
Trump said the potential aircraft deal also would benefit General Electric, which he said would supply 400 to 450 engines to China. GE Aerospace Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp also joined the president on his trip. The company did not immediately comment on the agreement.
Last month, Ortberg expressed confidence that any broad U.S.-China trade agreement to emerge when Trump and Xi met would be a 鈥渕eaningful opportunity鈥� for Boeing.
鈥淧resident Trump has been very focused on supporting us in international campaigns, and he鈥檚 been very successful in doing that,鈥� Ortberg told investors.
Since Trump began serving his second term, his administration has made Boeing a focus of its plans to revive U.S. manufacturing.
A a year ago culminated in major aircraft agreements, including a Qatar Airways order for up to 210 Boeing jets in what the planemaker described at the time as its largest-ever widebody aircraft order. Saudi Arabia also placed commercial jetliner orders during the trip.
Other major Boeing agreements have followed meetings between Trump and foreign leaders. In August, Korean Air formalized to buy more than 100 Boeing aircraft, spare engines and long-term maintenance services during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung鈥檚 visit to Washington.
The following month, a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo臒an met with Trump in Washington, Turkish Airlines said it planned to to its fleet.
In another win for Boeing, the biennial Air Show opened in November with hometown airline of Boeing鈥檚 upcoming 777-9 aircraft. Days later, FlyDubai, the lower-cost sister carrier of Emirates, 75 additional Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly a third of the narrowbody airliners Boeing delivered went to China. But the company’s business there plummeted as U.S.-China relations soured.
China also was the first country to ground the in 2019 after two of the then-new models crashed less than five months apart in Indonesia and Ethiopia, . Chinese airlines did not resume Max flights until January 2023, much later than carriers in many other countries.
Ortberg as Boeing’s CEO in 2024, a calamitous year for the company. In January of that year, a panel known as a 737 Max shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. Boeing faced as it came under intensifying scrutiny over alleged production and quality failures.
While there were some hopes this week’s U.S.-China summit would result in concrete trade deal announcements, the president’s trip ended with a lot of uncertainty about what the two sides agreed on, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund.
Glaser told a media briefing Friday that there had been little concrete information about trade agreements from the summit, including on Chinese purchases of U.S. exports such as soybeans, liquefied natural gas and beef.
鈥淎ll that we have is really what the president has told the world that China has agreed to,鈥� Glaser said.
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Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this story.
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