After squabble, Trump visits Boeing
north charleston (South Carolina) — President Donald Trump promised to boost US manufacturing and punish companies for moving jobs overseas during a visit to a South Carolina Boeing plant to celebrate the unveiling of its latest Dreamliner jet.
The Republican president, who previously feuded with the plane maker over projected costs for the next version of Air Force One, gave a ringing endorsement to the company and used the event to highlight his pitch to boost homegrown job growth.
“I’m going to do everything I can to unleash the power of the American spirit and to put our great people back to work,” Trump told a crowd of workers at the plant, with the presidential aircraft and the new Boeing jet behind him.
“This is our mantra: buy American, and hire American.”
Trump repeated his campaign threat that any company that lays off American workers to move to another country will face a “substantial penalty” when trying to sell their products in the United States. Trump’s visit to the Boeing plant in North Charleston was a victory for Boeing, which had faced pointed tweets from Trump over the price tag to build a new Air Force One presidential aircraft fleet.
Trump took a tour of the factory along with chief executive Dennis Muilenburg, and declared that the company had done “an incredible job”. While Trump praised Boeing during his visit, he also signalled he would keep up pressure on defence companies to cut better deals with the US government.
After delivering his remarks, Trump told reporters that the price
This is our mantra: buy american, and hire american US President Donald Trump
for the Air Force One fleet is still “too high, but we’re negotiating”.
He also said that Boeing’s competitor, Lockheed Martin, would have to cut the price of its stealthy F-35 jet or his administration would consider replacing some F-35 orders with Boeing’s F/A-18 Hornet jets. “We’re going to save billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said. “Most important, we are going to have a great product from both Boeing and Lockheed.”
On Thursday, Air Force Lt-Gen Chris Bogdan, who runs the F-35 programme for the Pentagon, said the cost of the jet could fall 16 per cent to around $80 million in future purchases. Trump and other US officials have criticised the Pentagon’s most expensive programme for delays and cost overruns, but the price per jet has steadily declined in recent years as production ramps up.