Tariffs will add millions of dollars to the cost of an airliner and destroy a free trade system that has created a massive export surplus for the U.S. industry according to aerospace officials canvassed by MSNBC on Thursday. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg just happened to be testifying at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday and diverted from the topic at hand (Boeing's progress on improving quality control) to comment on the tariffs that will affect raw materials and parts it uses in its aircraft. âFree trade is very important to us,â Boeing Ortberg said at the Senate hearing. âWe really are the ideal kind of an export company where weâre outselling internationally. Itâs creating U.S. jobs, long-term high value U.S. jobs. So itâs important that we continue to have access to that market and that we donât get in a situation where certain markets become closed to us.â
Russ, thanks for focusing on economic fundamentals, not spin. This new round of tariffs is supposed to bring jobs back and teach the world a lesson, but so far, it looks like mostly pain up front with maybe a few factories cutting ribbons for the cameras, if that even happens.
Aerospace is getting slammed with higher costs, foreign buyers are backing off, and we still donât have the supply chain to back up all the tough talk.
The stock marketâs not buying it either, investors see the risk and are already bracing for slower growth, higher prices and global blowback. Hoping Wall Street doesnât freak out harder.
The tariffs are on par with what we have been used to paying for offshore products, so our trading partners will adjust. Boeing is a great company that is dealing with internal issues. To paraphrase a recent president, âDonât bet against America.â
Tariffs will make companies like Boeing less efficient and less competitive. These companies are now paying a large tax on many of their input costs. If those input even could be resourced in the US, it will be from a non-competitive, higher cost and less efficient supplier.
It is unclear to me why a company would want to spend millions of dollars and 3-5 years to build a factory in the US when the trade war has made the worldâs economy unstable and threatens a recession here, only to risk saner heads eventually realizing the destructive influence of high tariffs and reversing them? Chaos kills business initiative. Elect a clown, expect a circus.
Cry me a river boys and girls. The current tariff system is woefully unfair. There is no international free trade as currently exists. If there was truly free trade tariffs would not exist, period. The US has been taken advantage of for decades and itâs about to come to an end. No free lunch for any foreignerâs including the US. US security and the middle class will be the beneficiaryâs. Get rid of all world wide tariffâs. Now thatâs fair.
The stock market is doing what it is supposed to be doing, correcting for the free lunch excesses of the past. The âcry me a riverâ crowd is sickening. The playing field will be leveled and new leaders and victors will emerge.
Tariffs will be driving up Boeingâs prices, making their jets less competitive globally. Meanwhile, Airbus faces no such hurdles and can now seize market share. With Boeing already grappling with production and safety concerns, the timing couldnât be worse .
Boeingâs current struggles reflect the broader consequences of poor leadership and trade policy.
There is a lot that could be said about these tariffs; almost none of which is appropriate for this forum. My aviation-related concern is the harmful impact the 20% tariff on the EU will have on light sport aircraft manufacturers such as Pipistrel, Zlin, Bristell, Evektor, Atec, Jihlavan and many others as well as the impacts on distributors for these aircraft located across this country. These distributors are small but vital parts of non-turbine general aviation in this country and they will be hit hard without much reason. Is the fact that we buy more from the Czech Republic and Slovenia than they buy from us really unfair? Does that minor trade imbalance really pose a threat to our economic well-being?
The markets are not reacting to some mythical âfree lunch.â They are reacting to instability. Aviation runs on long-term planning, not political mood swings. Tear up trade without a solid plan, and you do not get strength. You get disruption.
Tariffs do not bring back lost aerospace jobs. They raise the cost of aircraft, parts, and materials. That hits manufacturers, airlines, and right away, the passenger. Higher fares, fewer routes, tighter margins. When reliability drops, the user stops using.
From there, the damage spreads. Airports cut back. Suppliers lose contracts. Shipping slows. Business travel gets more expensive. Emergency services and school transportation pay more. What starts in the hangar ends up in the classroom, the warehouse, and the ambulance bay.
As Gary Cohn put it, âTariffs are basically a tax on the consumer.â They do not fix the system. They shift the cost to workers, small businesses, and the next generation, who will be flying less and paying more.
Aviation depends on clarity and coordination. Without real strategy, this is not leadership. It is disruption and damage, passed off as policy. Waiting for a reversal.
Negotiated trading with tariffs and other factors has been done for decades and longer between governments and business. Imbalance is the existential nature of peoples, governments and business - always has been. The players have been well aware of this, but succeeded to strike deals for best benefit and partnership anyway.
âIt is disruption and damage, passed off as policy.â And this has been precisely the plan from the beginning.
These new tariffs affecting aviation world-wide is merely one move on the board game of âAuthoritarianismâ. Create unprovoked, unnecessary chaos, restore at least the illusion of order, and you can be King.
For those sweethearts who still fly with Cult Airways you should know, it will also fail eventually, not from tariffs, but fuel exhaustion.
Who is the âtheyâ you want to continue to pay the piper? Boeingâs workers? Boeingâs suppliers? Boeingâs investors? Boeingâs customers? All of the above have paid dearly for the gross mismanagement of Boeing. Boeing has lost around $35 billion since 2019 (the beginning of the 737 Max debacle and major issues with the KC-46 and 787). In response, sweeping changes were belatedly made to the board and the executive ranks. Increasing the costs of our largest exporter, one of our largest manufacturers, and one of our largest employers of high paying skilled manufacturing jobs is wildly counterproductive to reducing our trade deficit or increasing domestic manufacturing. America needs Boeingâs turnaround to succeed because America needs Boeing. Arbitrarily disadvantaging Boeing by the ham fisted blanket application of tariffs is not good for America.
Complainers act like the current tariff schedule is a permanent dislocation to existing free trade. In reality, this is the stick intended to make the current lopsided trade imbalance behave more like actual free trade. If countries eliminate tariffs on US made products, there wonât be any US tariff on their products. The only countries left are the ones that refuse to remove their own tariffs and they are the ones wanting a trade war. Good luck with that.
There have been some good comments in regard to the Tariffs. As a business owner, the biggest issue is the cost of labor here in the US. Big companies chased lower wages for years to improve profits and satisfy shareholders, which resulted in jobs going abroad. I recall at one of the Aerospace companies, the CEO was giving a brief to the employees. During the briefing, it was mentioned the concern regarding the quality of wire harness that were coming from Mexico and if that work could be brought back in house. The response was it was cheaper to discard the harnesses which had quality issues rather than bring the manufacturing work back in house to alleviate the quality concerns. The problem now is some of these countries China for example, can mass produce items at a fraction of the cost in regard to labor then the US. Now that the tariffs are in place with the idea of bringing jobs back to the US, does not solve the imbalance of labor costs. Within the aviation industry, we have been dealing with supply chain issues that have caused an increase of costs. Now we have to deal with increase in material costs due to the tariffs. Who will pay for the increased costs? Those will be passed on to the consumer as companies cannot absorb the cost as margins are already thin. That will equate to the lower class and some of the middle class not being able to afford the increase in costs which means some will choose alternative means of travel. In my opinion, this is a no-win proposition.