China has barred its country’s airlines from accepting deliveries from Boeing in retaliation against Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The ban will apply to all existing orders from the US manufacturing giant, while Beijing has also told the country’s carriers not to buy any aircraft-related equipment or parts from other American companies.
Boeing’s shares slumped as much as 4.5pc in premarket trading following the reports.
It comes after China imposed 125pc tariffs on US-manufactured goods, which more than doubled the cost of Boeing planes and made it impractical for airlines to buy them, according to Bloomberg.
It is the latest move in the tit-for-tat trade war between the US and China, which has seen Washington impose tariffs as high as 145pc on Chinese goods.
Boeing, which didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, has been caught in the middle of the clash, losing access to one of the world’s biggest aviation markets in the process.
While Airbus has dominated Western airliner exports to China in recent years, the world’s second biggest economy remains a vital market for Boeing and had been forecast to make up 20pc of global demand over the next two decades.
It is also not the first time that Boeing has been a source of tension between Washington and Beijing, as China was the first country to ground the 737 Max jet following two fatal crashes in 2019.
It was also one of the last to allow the plane to re-enter service.
The standoff highlights China’s lingering dependence on imported planes despite its attempts to build up its own aerospace industry. The C919, a rival to the 737 developed by local plane-maker Comac, has won only a handful of export deals.
Currently, around 10 Boeing 737s are preparing to enter Chinese airline fleets, based on data from Aviation Flights Group, with some waiting at Boeing’s manufacturing base in Seattle and others at the firm’s completion and delivery centre in eastern China.
Paperwork and payments for some of the jets may have been completed before China’s reciprocal tariffs took effect on April 12, Bloomberg reported, meaning they could still be delivered.
The Chinese government is also considering ways to provide assistance to airlines that lease Boeing jets and are facing higher costs, it said.
Meanwhile, the broader impact of tariffs on the aerospace industry remains confused.
Airlines in both the US and Europe have indicated that they intend to defer deliveries should Washington impose levies on planes, but Mr Trump has so far failed to make clear whether that will be the case.
The boss of Delta Air Lines said last week that the carrier would not pay any tariffs that might become applicable on upcoming Airbus deliveries, and would instead delay taking the planes.
Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, one of the world’s biggest customers for Boeing planes, said he would also probably defer deliveries from the US company if they were to become more expensive.
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