America’s Department of Commerce imposes a tariff of 292% on Bombardier’s C-Series jets
A YEAR ago Dennis Muilenburg, the chief executive of Boeing, the American aerospace giant, had a big problem. Tweets written by Donald Trump, America’s newly elected president, were hitting Boeing’s share price. Their value was initially lifted by the new president’s promise of extra spending on defence. But in December last year Boeing’s shares fell after a tweet from Mr Trump suggested that an order for new presidential planes worth $4bn should be cancelled. The newly-elected president then picked a fight with its rival Lockheed Martin over its new fighter jet; Boeing’s executives were left in fear of being the next target in his gunsight.
And so, it seemed, Mr Muilenburg came up with a plan: snuggle up to Mr Trump’s “America First” agenda to avoid the flack. Boeing started to stress in its press releases how many American jobs it was creating; it asked to president to unveil the first 787-10 jet produced in February and in April it filed a trade case against Bombardier,…
