The trade dispute sparked by
’s charges that
is dumping C Series aircraft at unfair prices is marked by loud rhetoric on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. Ottawa’s Liberal government has threatened Boeing’s defense business in Canada and enlisted UK Prime Minister Theresa May to lobby U.S. President Donald Trump. But Canada’s attempts to derail the petitions filed by Boeing with the U.S. Commerce Department and International Trade Commission have had no effect so far. The reason: The true target is not really Canada, but China and its aircraft industry.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer charges that Beijing’s efforts to subsidize and create national champions and force technology transfers distorts markets throughout the world and is an “unprecedented” threat to the global trading system. Take aviation. By 2036, China is projected to be the No. 1 or No. 2 market in commercial aviation, a sector long dominated by
and Boeing. Its national champion is Comac, which manufactures the
regional jet and
narrow-body and is developing—with Russia—the CR929 widebody. Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” plan sets aggressive targets for its aircraft industry, tasking Comac with taking more than 10% of the domestic market for mainline commercial aircraft.
That goal is backed by mercantilist policies and substantial government subsidies. Beijing has tried to break into markets before. China has poured tens of billions of dollars into cracking the semiconductor oligopoly controlled by U.S., Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese companies. But so far it has not been successful in securing state-of-the-art integrated-circuit manufacturing technology because the industry has worked collaboratively to frustrate Chinese mercantilist ambitions. This has prevented the semiconductor market from suffering the fate of solar photovoltaics, or steel, where the market has been gutted by excess capacity from hundreds of new Chinese businesses.
Bombardier’s China strategy amounts to aiding and abetting Chinese mercantilism in commercial aviation, with predictable consequences for the global aerospace industry. The company entered into an agreement with Comac in 2012 to explore synergies between the C Series and C919, with the goal of challenging the Airbus-Boeing duopoly. Nothing concrete came out of that, and Bombardier nearly went bankrupt in 2015 before receiving investments from Canadian provincial and federal entities of at least $3 billion.
In May 2017, the
Financial Times reported that Comac and Bombardier held talks about Chinese entities buying a stake in Bombardier Commercial Aircraft or the C Series, quoting an unnamed source as saying, “everything is on the table.” That included Chinese access to Bombardier’s technologies and its marketing, distribution and support infrastructure. This potential collaboration with China is, in my opinion, the principal but unspoken reason behind Boeing’s trade complaint.
As a Canadian company, Bombardier is entitled to preferences under the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) that sharply restrict U.S. trade actions so long as the product qualifies as NAFTA-origin. Indeed, Canada’s entitlement to arbitration under NAFTA’s Section 19 may be its last resort in the C Series dispute short of taking its case to the World Trade Organization. Not surprisingly, the U.S. wants to eliminate Chapter 19 in the renegotiation of NAFTA now underway.
So long as components add up to 50% of transaction value or 60% of net cost, a product qualifies for NAFTA preference. What if Chinese aerospace companies gained access to those same NAFTA preferences?
In its defense against Boeing’s claims, Bombardier says more than 50% of Canadian-assembled C Series aircraft come from the U.S., including its engines and avionics. The wing comes from Bombardier’s plant in Northern Ireland, but much of the fuselage already comes from SACC in China. It is conceivable that Bombardier could incorporate NAFTA-qualified engines, avionics and subsystems, but complete the final assembly in China—and have an aircraft that still qualifies as NAFTA-origin under the current rules.
Similarly, Chinese-built aircraft branded “Bombardier” could be sold from Canada while bypassing all tariffs against a China-based manufacturer. And Bombardier technology could enable Comac to build a successor to the C919 that would be truly competitive with Airbus and Boeing offerings in China. In other words, with Chinese investment, Comac-Bombardier could rapidly stand up as a capable competitor to the Airbus-Boeing duopoly in the North American and Chinese markets.
Boeing’s complaints about C Series subsidies are getting the media attention, but Bombardier’s willingness to transfer technologies and knowhow to China is at the heart of this trade dispute.