On Tuesday, Donald Trump posted briefly and categorically on Truth Social: "No more Bombardier sales to the USA!" The condition for canceling the threat is that the Canadian company must relocate aircraft production to the United States. Before this, the president managed to criticize the quality of Bombardier's products and accuse it of treating America like a "piggy bank."
Behind this threat stand not abstract trade balance figures, but concrete jobs. Bombardier has 3,500 employees in the US and works with 2,800 American suppliers, while the company's factories and service centers are located in the country. The ban will hurt not only the Canadian manufacturer – it will affect American companies that supply Bombardier components and Americans who work at these factories.
Why the ban appears technically unlikely
The trade war that Trump has been waging against Canada for over a year has so far spared the aerospace industry – and there is a reason. Most of Bombardier's private aircraft are equipped with engines manufactured by American companies Honeywell Aerospace and GE Aerospace. That is, a ban on Canadian aircraft sales would simultaneously mean a blow to its own engine exporters.
American analyst Richard Aboulafia, cited by CBC, admitted that he doesn't understand how the US could technically implement such a ban. The problem is not the desire, but the fact that the aircraft manufacturing industry is a tangled web of supply chains, not one country against another.
Who actually risks losing the market
About half of the 5,100 Bombardier aircraft operated by its customers are located in the US. This means that it is not about a hypothetical sales market, but about an already existing fleet of equipment whose maintenance is tied to the company's American infrastructure. A ban on new sales won't make these aircraft disappear from the sky, but it will complicate the logic of future maintenance contracts and fleet renewal deals.
Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette called Trump's post a provocation and publicly supported the company on social media X. "Bombardier is a source of pride for Quebec, a flagship of our economy and one of the key players in the aerospace industry. Behind this company stand thousands of Quebec workers who demonstrate our competence around the world," she wrote.
Context: a trade war where Canada did not surrender
- Canada is one of the few countries in the world that refused to silently accept increased American tariffs on its goods, and in response imposed its own tariffs.
- After this, Trump's supporters complained that they were able to reach a trade deal with China, but not with Canada.
The threat to Bombardier looks more like a signal of frustration than a ready-made action plan: too many American jobs and companies are tied to the success of the Canadian manufacturer. The question is whether this statement will become the beginning of real pressure on the aerospace industry, or whether it will remain just a social media post – it will depend on whether Canada makes concessions in trade negotiations in the coming weeks.
