A Boeing jet earmarked for China was returning to the US yesterday, flight tracking data showed, as the planemaker’s flagship delivery plant outside Shanghai was drawn into a deepening tariff war between Beijing and Washington.
The return of one of several jets waiting for final work and handover to a Chinese carrier at the completion centre in Zhoushan is the latest sign of disruption to deliveries from a breakdown in the industry’s decades-old duty-free status.
In a sign that Boeing was preparing for normal business just weeks before US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on April 2, three new 737 Max planes had flown from Boeing in Seattle to Zhoushan in March.
Another arrived last week at Zhoushan, where Boeing instals interiors and paints liveries before handing over to customers, according to Flightradar24 data.
But yesterday, one of the first batch of jets took off again without being delivered and flew from Zhoushan to the US territory of Guam – one of the stops such flights make as they cross the Pacific – indicating it was heading back to Seattle.
The 5,000-mile trip back to Boeing’s main factory comes as the planemaker’s business in China is under scrutiny over the tariff dispute.
Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that Boeing faced a Chinese ban on imports, part of the escalating confrontation over President Trump’s “reciprocal” global tariffs.
There has been no official comment from Beijing, or in Chinese state media.
Senior aviation and aerospace industry sources told Reuters they were not aware of formal instructions against taking Boeing planes.
Even so, industry sources and analysts widely agreed that the imposition of tariffs on US goods by Beijing in response to Trump’s actions would effectively block aircraft imports without any formal ban.
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