Boeing says China plane orders support 150,000 US jobs a year

Deliveries to China by Boeing, the largest US exporter, support approximately 150,000 American jobs every year, Vice Chairman Ray Conner said. Chinese customers are expected to take delivery of 30 percent of all its top-selling 737 models and about 25% all aircraft produced in Washington State and South Carolina, Conner said Thursday at a National Committee on US-China Relations event in New York. "Obviously these deliveries are very significant to the nearly 76,000 Boeing employees who design, assemble and support our commercial airplanes," Conner said. "China is enormously important to our success as a company and as a major US exporter." The comments come as Boeing, long a bellwether for trade relations between the world’s two largest economies, faces new risks from US President-elect Donald Trump’s threats of punitive tariffs on China. A trade war could cause Boeing to lose a chunk of the $1 trillion market for airplane it forecasts over the next 20 years, and one Communist Party newspaper recently said orders could be given to Airbus Group should a trade tiff erupt.<br/>