Senior Senator From Washington State Blasts Section 232 Aerospace Investigation
Washington state punches above its weight in goods exports, and exported $57.8 billion worth of goods in 2024, including $40.7 billion in manufactured products. Some 45% of those manufactured exports are Boeing planes and aerospace parts.
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Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is a longtime free-trade advocate, and she is befuddled by the administration's concern that foreign unfair trade practices and state-sponsored overproduction are artificially suppressing the prices of commercial aircraft, aircraft parts and jet engines and their parts. The Commerce Department recently launched a Section 232 investigation on whether aerospace imports imperil national security, and whether the domestic industry needs tariffs or quotas on its competition.
"I'm not sure what the heck that's about," she said in a hallway interview with International Trade Today. "We certainly don't need to be making aerospace more expensive now," she said. "This doesn't make sense."
Cantwell pointed to news from President Donald Trump's trip to Qatar, when Qatar Airlines announced -- with Boeing's CEO present -- that it would buy 160 Boeing aircraft, with the option of 50 more in future years, mostly wide-body planes. The planes would be delivered past 2030, Boeing said.
"We have very fuel-efficient wide-body planes winning the day. Let's go win the day when there's a world demand for 40,000 planes," she said.
Aerospace manufacturing is the most successful manufacturing export the U.S. has, she said. She said you'd think if the president had just announced almost $100 billion worth of airplane exports, he'd get that. But she said he doesn't seem to understand that Boeing imports components -- the company says from Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea and others. Or that Airbus imports components from the U.S., India, Japan, the U.K. and other countries outside its original EU assembly locations. Airbus also assembles commercial aircraft in Alabama. Airbus says it buys $15 billion worth of parts each year from more than 2,000 suppliers across 40 U.S. states.
Cantwell said that about 25% of aerospace companies in Washington and Oregon build for Airbus and Boeing, not just Boeing.
Similarly, the GE engine that Qatar Airlines chose for the Dreamliners is a partnership between GE and France's Safran Aircraft Engines, and GE says the engine contains more than 1 million parts, and they come from six countries, including its own factory in Italy.
"This is like, you're basically throwing a wrench in effective supply chaining ... that makes U.S. manufacturing successful," Cantwell said.
"I thought we were for capitalism and driving down costs. I like that capitalism is one of our best exports."