May warns Boeing over row

Prime Minister Theresa May has told US plane maker Boeing its behaviour in a trade dispute with Canada’s Bombardier is undermining its commercial relationship with Britain.

Prime Minister Theresa May has told US plane maker Boeing its behaviour in a trade dispute with Canada’s Bombardier is undermining its commercial relationship with Britain.

May intervened in the trade row between Canada and the US after a complaint by Boeing led to the US department of commerce imposing a preliminary 220% duty on Bombardier’s C Series jets.

The US ruling puts as many as 4,200 jobs at risk at a plant in Northern Ireland, where the jets’ carbon wings are made.

“We have a long-term partnership with Boeing in various aspects of government and this is not the sort of behaviour we expect from a long-term partner, and it undermines that partnership,” May said in response to a question at a Bank of England event on Thursday.

Boeing, the world’s biggest plane maker, has said it is committed to the UK.

May’s criticism of Boeing indicates the importance of the plant to the small Northern Irish political party on which her government has relied since she lost her parliamentary majority in June following a botched election campaign.

Britain would nevertheless find it difficult to unpick its ties with one of its most important defence equipment suppliers.

May also needs US President Donald Trump’s support as Britain prepares to leave the EU. She has pitched a new trade deal with the US to cushion the effect of leaving the EU’s tariff-free single market.

But May could find it difficult to convince Trump to get one of the titans of US industry to back off from defending what it views as its trade rights.