Issue of the week: the Bombardier bombshell

A row with Boeing has cast doubt on Britain’s chances of striking a transformative trade deal with the US

America’s decision to slap punitive 220% tariffs on the Canadian planemaker Bombardier last week drew a fierce reaction from Theresa May, said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. The Prime Minister “dropped a strong hint that the Government will stop ordering planes” from the US company Boeing (which brought the action against Bombardier, claiming that it is “dumping” cheap jets on the US market). “This is not the sort of behaviour we expect from a long-term partner,” said May. The PM’S “frantic efforts” to lobby for Bombardier have raised questions over her motivation, said Robert Wright in the FT. Boeing’s move threatens some 4,200 jobs in Bombardier’s Belfast factory. Some claim she is taking the matter “particularly seriously” because the Tories depend on Ulster’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for their majority. “It remains unclear precisely how the issue will affect Britain’s ability to strike a post-brexit trade deal with the US.” But at a time when gung-ho Brexiteers are talking up Britain’s trading prospects outside the EU, the dispute reinforces concerns about President Trump’s “America First” policy.

Rightly so, said Irwin Stelzer in The Sunday Times. Only “a mere three months ago”, the president was looking into May’s eyes and promising her “a trade deal which will be a very, very big deal, a very powerful deal”. Yet he has already pulled the rug out from under her by siding with Boeing. “Hypocrisy abounds.” Boeing complains that Bombardier has received subsidies from both the Canadian and UK governments, yet Boeing is itself ranked as America’s top recipient of taxpayer largesse by the Cato Institute; the World Trade Organisation claims the US plane-maker has “benefited from billions in illegal state subsidies”. Still, the president “is not a man to worry about hypocrisy”. Nor, indeed, the irony that slapping tariffs on Bombardier will mean higher prices for the 180 million people, most of them Americans, who fly with one of its biggest customers, Delta Air Lines.

All is not lost for Bombardier’s Belfast workers, said The Observer. The company is close to signing a $1.1bn contract with airbaltic, “which could keep the factory in good shape while the US dispute rumbles on”. But this affair “demonstrates the risks of putting our faith in free trade just as the world becomes more protectionist”. The “crunch point” could come in February, when the US International Trade Commission, which imposed the tariffs, makes its final decision, said the FT. Ironically, as Brexit talks proceed, success may hinge on how well the European Commission represents the UK case to international trade bodies.