Hopes for a new Chinese commitment to buy Boeing jets at Thursday's US-China presidential summit are fading, with two people briefed on the talks saying negotiations remain in flux. Boeing is now trying to finalize the 200-plane deal agreed in May rather than win new commitments for hundreds more aircraft. A summit that ends without an aircraft announcement would leave Boeing's China order book stalled and Airbus's market share advantage intact.
Boeing is heading into Xi Jinping's state visit with a defensive goal: hold the 200-aircraft tranche it won in May, not add to it. Two people briefed on the negotiations said the talks remain unsettled, and the planemaker has stopped chasing the larger order it once expected.
"It will be a victory if the 200 airplane order can be saved," Richard Aboulafia, managing director at aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, said.
The retreat is steep. Ahead of the spring summit in Beijing, Boeing, Chinese and US officials were discussing a deal for as many as 500 jets. What emerged was 200, which Boeing Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg described as an "initial tranche" and framed as the real prize — reopening a market that had been effectively closed to the US planemaker since 2017. Ortberg played down the prospect of a follow-on order last week.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News on Monday that "there are about 140 (jetliner orders) that are in a good state," with another 10 being finalized. One person briefed on the matter said final details for part of the May deal could still be announced during the summit if contracts can be completed.
The summit agenda points elsewhere. Scott Kennedy, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said brokering new jetliner deals is not a top priority, with officials focused on extending a trade truce, AI safeguards, weapons sales to Taiwan and deals on soybean and rare earth exports. "A lot of trade relationships are hostage to these meetings," Kennedy said. "New aircraft orders would be a benefit but I don't think that's a necessity for this summit."
The competitive arithmetic is unforgiving. China is expected to order around 9,000 new jets by 2045, more than any other region, according to Airbus and Boeing market forecasts. Airbus has taken the larger share of that demand in recent years, helped by a final assembly line in Tianjin and by China-Europe relations that have been "more benign" than China-US ties, said Shukor Yusof, founder of Singapore-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
"Boeing has lost much of its influence in our region, partly due to politics, but mostly because of its own internal issues," Shukor said.
The last comparable window for Boeing was the May summit itself, when the provisional deal — struck alongside Trump's Beijing visit — put the company back into competition for Chinese jetliner orders. That deal carried conditions: before signing, China raised concerns about guaranteed access to spare parts following earlier threats from Trump, and China's commerce ministry said in May that the US had provided supply guarantees for aircraft engine parts and components.
Trade policy remains the binding constraint on the wider relationship. The US and China agreed to extend by two months a trade truce that was due to expire on November 10, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday, buying time for a potentially larger trade deal. The extension removes an immediate escalation risk but leaves the structural dispute — tariffs, export controls and Taiwan — unresolved, the same set of issues that has kept Boeing on the sidelines.
For investors, the summit is now a binary event with an asymmetric payoff. A confirmed tranche of roughly 140 to 200 jets would restore a visible slice of backlog and support the case that China deliveries normalize; a summit that ends with no aircraft announcement leaves Boeing's China order book where it has sat for nine years and keeps the market share gap with Airbus widening into a 9,000-jet demand pool.
The read-through extends past Boeing. Engine and component suppliers geared to the 737 MAX program would absorb any delay in Chinese deliveries, while Airbus's Tianjin output and its European supply chain stand to keep gaining share if the order stays unsigned. Boeing declined to comment beyond Ortberg's remarks last week. China's commerce ministry and its embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment, and the US Trade Representative's Office did not respond to a request for comment.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
