Trudeau gets tough with Boeing
No deals until Bombardier fight ends: PM
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Boeing can forget about selling fighter jets to Canada as long as its trade complaint is ongoing against Quebec aerospace firm Bombardier.
Trudeau’s comments Monday, the toughest yet in the ongoing battle between Boeing and the Canadian government over the complaint against Bombardier, appear to jeopardize not only Boeing’s current proposal to sell interim fighter jets to Canada but its hope to sell Canada additional aircraft in the future to replace the CF18 fleet permanently.
“We won’t do business with a company that is busy trying to sue us and put our aerospace workers out of business,” Trudeau said Monday during a press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Trudeau later accused Boeing of trying to eliminate “tens of thousands of jobs through their attack against Bombardier” and said the American company “should not expect us to buy planes off them if they are attacking our industry.”
May also said she will raise the issue of Boeing’s trade complaint against Bombardier with U.S. President Donald Trump when she meets with him later this week. May recently asked Trump to intervene in the situation as the British government is concerned about the impact on jobs at Bombardier’s plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The Liberal government had wanted to buy 18 of Boeing’s Super Hornet fighter jets to provide Canada’s military with an interim solution while it worked on acquiring a permanent replacement for its aging CF-18s, but that plan was derailed in April when Boeing filed a trade complaint against Bombardier.
Boeing’s complaint to the U.S. government holds that Bombardier’s civilian passenger-jet program has been subsidized, which in turn allowed it to sell its C-Series civilian passenger aircraft at below-market prices. At Boeing’s behest, the U.S. Commerce Department and International Trade Commission launched an investigation.
On Monday, the prime minister described the CSeries aircraft as “excellent” and said Canada will protect the aerospace jobs associated with the plane.
“The actions that Boeing has taken is very much in their narrow economic interests to harm an international competitor,” Trudeau said. Boeing officials, however, pointed out after Trudeau’s comments that the company is not suing Canada; its trade complaint is aimed at Bombardier.
Marc Allen, Boeing’s president of international business, has said the company took action to ensure a level playing field.
He said Boeing believes that global trade only works if everyone plays by the same rules — which hasn’t been the case for Bombardier, he said. Allen and other Boeing officials have argued that the Super Hornet deal should not be connected to a commercial trade dispute.
Trudeau’s tough stance is good news for Lockheed Martin, which is hoping to sell Canada its F-35 stealth fighter both as interim fighters and as permanent CF-18 replacements.