Boeing CEO warns against protectionism as US, UK gear up for elections

“We’re a company that relies on trade,” outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun said in an onstage interview at the Berlin Aviation Summit on Tuesday. “I’ll be the first to acknowledge that that seems to be going in the wrong direction and has been for quite some time.”

Calhoun didn’t express a preference between the presumptive nominees, incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Biden last month raised tariffs on an array of Chinese goods, including battery-powered vehicles, while Trump has said the measures didn’t go far enough.

Aircraft purchases can rise or fall with economic relationships, particularly in high-growth markets like China. European rival Airbus SE has sought to improve its foothold in that market with local manufacturing, while Boeing’s business there has been held back because of fraying relations between the two countries. 

Calhoun spoke as Boeing works to restart plane deliveries to China, which have been halted as regulators there scrutinize the design of a new cockpit voice recorder for its 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner models. Bloomberg reported earlier that low-cost carrier 9Air expects a 737 delivery this week.

The delivery halt in China has hampered Boeing’s effort to empty a backlog of finished planes destined for the Asian country that has lingered since the grounding of the 737 Max in 2019, following two fatal crashes. 

Resuming those handovers would help Boeing limit a cash drain while it retools its factories to address safety issues arising from the latest 737 accident, the blowout of a fuselage panel in January.  

‘Different Company’

Calhoun said Boeing is a “different company” since the Jan. 5 accident, when a fuselage panel ejected from a nearly new 737 Max 9, terrifying passengers aboard the Alaska Air Group Inc. flight. 

Whle no-one was seriously injured, the mishap set off a wave of regulatory scutiny on the US planemaker, and forced the company to limit production of the 737, its biggest moneymaker. Calhoun has agreed to step down at year-end as part of a management overhaul. 

Calhoun said he’d continue to lobby for free trade and expressed support for a strong NATO. Trump has criticized members of the US-Europe defense coalition, demanding allies fulfill their spending commitments as a condition of protection. 

Airbus and Boeing for decades have sparred over government policies that offer any hint of an advantage for one side or the other, even as the two dominant planemakers espouse the benefits of free trade.  

Calhoun said he’s worried that isolation will damage economies in the long run. His concerns echo those raised by other large exporters, including German carmakers, that protectionist policies will poison the marketplace for companies reliant on selling their goods abroad. 

“Isolation then breeds disenchantment; disenchantment ultimately breeds political turnover,” Calhoun said. “That’s the world I worry about with respect to isolation, and I don’t like any of the signs I see.”