Trump says China to buy 200 Boeing jets, order could go up to 750

WASHINGTON – China has agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets, with a potential for the order to rise to as much as 750 planes, US President Donald Trump said on May 15, adding that the planes would have General Electric engines.

The deal “includes approximately 200 planes and a promise of up to 750 if they do a good job”, Mr Trump told reporters.

More details on the deal such as which type of jets and when the order would be delivered were not immediately available.

The orders, if finalised, would mark Boeing’s first major Chinese deal in nearly a decade, after the US planemaker was largely shut out of the world’s second-largest aviation market amid trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Shares of the US planemaker had dropped nearly 4 per cent on May 14 after Mr Trump told Fox News Channel that China had agreed to buy 200 jets, a figure that was well below analysts’ expectations.

They were down about 1 per cent in premarket trading on May 15.

Sources had earlier told Reuters that an order for roughly 500 jets was under discussion ahead of the meeting between Mr Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

An order for more than 500 jets, if it materialises, would be the largest in aviation history.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp were among the group of American executives who accompanied Mr Trump to China in hopes of clinching deals or resolving business disputes.

The deal would also be much-needed win for Mr Trump, whose aggressive tariffs and other trade policies have so far failed to make much of a dent in the large US trade deficit. REUTERS