Boeing speaks in Trump terms on Iran deal: It’s about jobs

Boeing announced a $16.6b deal on Sunday to sell planes to Iran, which for decades had been economically blacklisted by the United States. The company instead chose to emphasise how many jobs the sale would support. “Today’s agreement will support tens of thousands of US jobs” associated with the production and delivery of the planes, Boeing said. The intended recipient of Boeing’s message clearly seemed to be President-elect Donald J. Trump. Its carefully worded statement is emblematic of the tightrope that America’s biggest exporters are walking amid his threats to shake up trade policy and undo the Obama administration’s nuclear accord with Iran. That agreement lifted the American sanctions on Iran, making Boeing’s jet deal possible. Trump has talked about imposing tariffs on imports from China and on American companies that move jobs to Mexico and other countries. But he has not said much about how some of America’s major manufacturing companies, like Boeing and General Electric, and their workers could be hurt if other countries retaliated for the tariffs or if existing trade agreements were ripped up. Boeing officials, already dismayed by Trump’s attack last week over the costs of a new Air Force One, acknowledged that the Iran jet deal still faced contingencies — a polite way of saying they were deeply worried about whether Mr. Trump and the Republican-led Congress would support it.<br/>