China said Wednesday it will buy 200 Boeing aircraft and work with the US to reduce tariffs, confirming some details from the outcome of President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last week.
The deal, which would end a virtual sales freeze on Boeing aircraft to China of nearly a decade, was announced by the Chinese Commerce Ministry on Wednesday.
It also said the US and China are negotiating an extension of a trade truce set to expire in November, and will discuss a framework for reciprocal tariff reduction on about $30 billion worth of goods.
The Commerce Ministry’s statement echoed the expectations given by Trump administration officials last Friday, at the end of a two-day summit in Beijing between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The visit was the first time a US leader met with Xi since 2017, when Trump last traveled to Beijing, and was seen as an important opportunity to ease tensions and stabilize trade policy between the world’s two largest economies.
China also said it will work with the US to expand two-way trade in agricultural products and ensure stability of rare earth supplies in global supply chains, though it did not say how.
While China did not specify when and what kind of aircraft it will buy, the Boeing deal was one of the most concrete deliverables to come out of the highly anticipated Trump-Xi meeting.
Still, Boeing stock prices fell after Trump first announced the anticipated sales last Thursday, since the total number of aircraft fell short of expectations of as many as 500. During Trump’s previous trip to Beijing, the US announced a deal to sell 300 Boeing aircraft to China, which largely fell through.
Boeing’s commercial aircraft sales to China first stalled after Trump started a trade war with Beijing during his first term in 2017. The impasse deepened after China become the first country to ground Boeing’s 737 Max jets in 2019 following two fatal crashes involving that model aircraft.
China is the second-largest aviation market in the world. In 2024, Boeing projected that Chinese airlines would need nearly 9,000 new aircraft over the next two decades. However, Boeing has sold only 49 jets to China since 2018, mostly freighter aircraft. That’s a small fraction of more than 1,000 Boeing sales to Chinese customers in the ten years before.
According to both sides, the US and China are still working to finalize a new board of trade and board of investment to facilitate bilateral trade and economic cooperation. During his time in Beijing, Trump invited Xi to visit the US in September.
