China to buy 200 Boeing jets, Trump says, fewer than expected

By David Shepardson and Dan Catchpole

WASHINGTON/SEATTLE, May 14 (Reuters) – China has agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News Channel on Thursday, marking the country’s first purchase of U.S.-made commercial jets in nearly a decade.

No details about the deal were immediately available, but 200 jets would be far fewer than the 500-jet deal that industry sources said had been discussed. It also would be far fewer than the number of new aircraft needed by Chinese airlines to keep up with the country’s booming demand for air travel.

Boeing shares fell more than 4% after the comments were aired.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Trump was referring to the entire Boeing order or only to narrowbody or widebody planes. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.    

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier had said that he expected an announcement about a large Boeing order during Trump’s visit to Beijing, during which he held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“One thing he agreed to today, he’s going to order 200 jets … 200 big ones,” Trump told the Fox News interviewer, referring to Xi.

It was not clear whether Trump was referring to single-aisle 737 MAXes or larger — and much more expensive — twin-aisle 777X or 787 jets used on long-haul flights.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp were among the group of American executives who accompanied Trump to China, one of the world’s largest commercial aviation markets, in hopes of clinching deals or resolving business disputes.

During Trump’s November 2017 trip, Beijing agreed to buy 300 Boeing airplanes. However, subsequent trade disputes between the countries effectively shut Boeing out of the world’s second-largest aviation market, which it once dominated.

The fallout between Beijing and Washington, followed by the 737 MAX crisis after two fatal crashes led to the grounding of the plane, as well as later production problems at Boeing allowed rival Airbus to cement its lead in the Chinese market. The European planemaker already had been aggressively courting Chinese airlines, even embedding itself into Beijing’s political economy by opening an A320 final assembly line in Tianjin in 2008.

However, China’s aviation market is too big to depend on one planemaker. The country will require at least 9,000 new jetliners by 2045, according to market projections by both Boeing and Airbus.  

Trump has aggressively pushed countries during trade talks to boost purchases of Boeing airplanes.

A Boeing deal has been in talks for many months, but geopolitical tensions, trade disputes and fights over intellectual property of advanced aerospace components have foiled earlier attempts to close a deal, according to industry sources familiar with previous negotiations.

Boeing CEO Ortberg last month told Reuters he was counting on the Trump administration’s support to seal a major deal with China.

Shares were down 3.8% at 1400 ET. 

(Reporting by David Shepardson and David Ljunggren and Dan Catchpole in Seattle; Editing by Michelle Nichols, Matthew Lewis and Deepa Babington)