U.S trade body backs Bombardier against Boeing | Hacker News Reader

U.S trade body backs Bombardier against Boeing

reuters.com

102 pointsrbanffy25 comments

Good. This was complete protectionist BS.

Consider me 'meh'. Boeing and Airbus got to do some grandstanding, and the nice lucrative pile of corruption that goes on behind the scenes of the whole industry keeps on turning. I don't consider it a win or a loss for anyone.

Even if the involved parties are corrupt it’s a good ruling. Replace the players and that outcome is preferrable over the alternative.

I've said it elsewhere, but:

This was basically a case about just how publicly and openly corrupt aircraft manufacturers can get away with being. Previously, they at least put some effort in to hide how much they were secretly being subsidized by their respective home governments and how much of a discount their customers got as a result. But this time around Bombardier either didn't bother or didn't succeed in keeping that mostly under wraps, and that seems to've violated an unspoken norm of the industry, which provoked Boeing to go after them. Which then provoked Airbus to get involved to try to spite Boeing. Which then made it a major story that people actually heard about.

I find it hard to conclude that there's a "good" or "winning" outcome here that doesn't involve addressing the underlying industry-wide corruption.

It's moot. Bombardier already made an agreement with Airbus to build those planes in the USA.

> Boeing said after the [Airbus] agreement “the announced deal has no impact or effect on the pending proceedings at all. Any duties finally levied against the C Series (which are now expected to be 300 per cent) will have to be paid on any imported C Series aeroplane or part, or it will not be permitted into the country.”"

https://www.ft.com/content/91968476-b41c-11e7-a398-73d59db9e...

Bombardier’s wing-making factory is in Northern Ireland so if the levy stood, that would have still affected the part prices?

protectionism eventually devolves into semantics.

if they can't block something they'll put a tariff on it.

if they can't put a tariff on they'll subsidize the local producer.

if they can't subsidize they'll award some bs government contract which achieves the same thing.

looking at you boeing.

If every large aircraft manufacturer weren't corrupt as hell you might have a point.

But, well, every large aircraft manufacturer is corrupt as hell. All that happened here was one of the industry spats over just how openly corrupt it's OK to be spilled out into major media.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the rule of law at work. I think breaking the Boeing/Airbus duopoly has to be a good thing in the long run.

Only because of this Boeing pressure, Bombardier sold its Cseries to Airbus. So no breaking the duopoly for now until the Chinese start building competitors to the A320 or the 737...

did they? My understanding is that they in effect sold the us market only (planes elsewhere would be made in B's factories) though I could be misremembering.

Planes for other markets might be made in bombardier's factory, but they airbus owns a majority stake in the c-series program since the us tariffs went into place.

Sold? They gave it away: 51% for $0.

In return for non cash consideration.

Mitsubishi is trying to break in, with a 90 passenger regional jet. They did work on the wings of the 787. I think they have a shot, but they seem to be having problems with execution.

The U.S commerce dept recommendation in the first place made Bombardier do a deal with Airbus. So...

emraer, comac, bombadier. who, in different spaces, do JV with either of Boeing or Airbus when it suits (I believe)

I should declare I'm a partisan for Airbus, because it bears noting that every Boeing whine, about unfair competition has been put back in its box: Seattle thinks it owns the business and has to be told to stop.

Boeing is headquartered in Chicago.

The parent company is, but Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the subsidiary that does commercial jets, is headquartered in Washington. Their ginormous production warehouse is also outside of Seattle.

For additional context, they moved headquarters in 2001 (a few years after merging with St. Louis based McDonnell Douglas in 1997):

“The company shocked Seattle--and much of corporate America--by announcing in March that it is moving its headquarters out of the city where William Boeing created the company 85 years ago, making it synonymous with aircraft manufacturing.

“The move, Boeing said at the time, is part of a reorganization to give more independence to its three core businesses--commercial airplanes in the Seattle area, military jets and missiles in St. Louis and space and communications business in Southern California.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/may/10/business/fi-61490

I have no doubt that almost any industrial concern you care to name headquarters elsewhere than the colloquial locale. Does it alter the point being made where it works and where decisions are made? If I said airbus decides in Toulouse will you point out where the board actually meets?

Do you have a source for that claim? Because although I don't follow this systematically, there have been major rulings in favor of Boeing and against Airbus over the years.

e.g.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/22/transatlantic...

and:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-04/wto-rules...

Also I am certain Boeing does not think it owns the business. But it does apparently believe it must play hard ball in terms of international litigation to survive. And given the case history with Airbus and Boeing basically attempting to put each other out of business, it doesn't seem such an unreasonable position to me - regardless of the merits of the current spat.

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1589

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/12/w...

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds487_e...

http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2012/03/swe...

Something tells me this battle isn't over. What's stop stop Trump from issuing another executive order that reinstates the tariffs? That's what he's been doing in a battle with the supreme courts on his Muslim ban for the past year.

Edit: *what's to stop

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