Bombardier seeks to enmesh Embraer in trade spat before ruling

Bombardier Tuesday attempted to draw its Brazilian rival Embraer into a hotly contested trade dispute, two days before a U.S. agency will rule on whether duties should be slapped on American sales of the Canadian plane-and-train-maker’s largest jet. The International Trade Commission (ITC), which oversees US trade remedy laws, is to decide on Thursday whether to back a US Commerce Department recommendation to hit Bombardier’s 110-to-130-seat CSeries with a duty of nearly 300 percent on sales to American carriers. The case follows a petition by Boeing, the world’s largest maker of jetliners, which argued its business was hurt because Bombardier received illegal government subsidies and dumped the CSeries in the US through the 2016 sale of 75 jets at “absurdly low prices” to Delta. The case could raise tensions this week between the United States and Canada which are meeting with Mexico in Montreal to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Bombardier, which contests Boeing’s claim, is asking the ITC to consider Embraer’s E190-E2 as a competitor in the 100-to-150-seat market because of recent improvements to the new plane’s range. Bombardier wants the ITC to take the unusual step of reopening the record to consider a recent FlightGlobal article, which cites an Embraer executive saying the plane’s range has improved from 2,850 nautical miles to 2,900 nautical miles.<br/>