Trump’s China Visit: Boeing’s 200 American Jets Order

Executives from top US companies including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg travelled with US President Donald Trump on his state visit to China for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

US President Donald Trump announced on Fox News that China has ordered 200 jets from Boeing.

President Trump told Fox News, when asked what China wanted from the US: “We talked about a lot of things, too many things to discuss. But, a lot of things, we had a very good meeting, but, we want things from them.”

Boeing’s China deal

The deal for 200 aircraft was announced by the US President during an interview with Fox News. 

President Trump told Fox News: “One thing he agreed to today, he’s gonna order 200 jets. That’s a big thing, Boeings. 200 big ones. 

“That’s a lot of jobs. That’s a lot. Boeing wanted 150, he got 200. He said, sort of, I think it was a commitment, I mean you know, sort of like a statement, but I think it was a commitment.”

Boeing’s last sale to China was in November of 2017, when state owned Chinese Aviation Supplies Hold Company (CASC) signed an agreement for the delivery of 300 airplanes. This deal was part of the US President’s last state visit to China, during his first term. 

The amount was much smaller than the roughly 500-plane package that sources told Reuters was under discussion. Boeing’s shares fell 4.1% during trading after the announcement. 

Who’s in China with the US President?

US President Donald Trump’s entourage in China is largely made up of executives from some of the world's largest companies from technology to financial services and manufacturing. 

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs; Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock; Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi; Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone; Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA and Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg all travelled with the US President. 

It was widely reported that although NVIDIA’s CEO was not on the initial list, he was personally invited by President Trump and was spotted joining the plane during a stopover in Alaska. 

Representaitive’s from Meta, Cargill, Visa, Cisco, Qualcomm, Coherent, Micron, GE ⁠Aerospace, Illumina and Mastercard have all joined the trip as well, according to multiple news outlets. 

Trump’s talks with Xi Jinping

The two superpowers were looking to hash out issues covering Iran, the countries strained trade relationships, oil and Taiwan were all on the agenda. 

So far, trade details of trade deals have remained scarce, with the announcement regarding the Boeing planes being a key development. 

According to CGTN, a Chinese state media outlet, President Xi said after a restricted meeting: "We had reached important common understandings on maintaining stable economic and trade ties, expanding practical cooperation in various fields and properly addressing each other's concerns.”

President Trump has now left China following the talks.