China said Wednesday it would buy 200 Boeing aircraft and work with the United States to lower tariffs, confirming several details from President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last week.
The agreement, which ends a nearly 10-year de facto freeze on sales of Boeing aircraft to China, was announced by China’s Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.
He also said the United States and China are negotiating an extension to the trade ceasefire that expires in November and will also discuss a framework for reciprocal tariff reductions on about $30 billion worth of items.
The Commerce Department’s statement echoed expectations expressed by Trump administration officials at the end of a two-day summit between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing last Friday.
The visit was the first time a US leader has met with Xi since Trump last visited Beijing in 2017, and was seen as a key opportunity to ease tensions and stabilize trade policy between the world’s two largest economies.
China also said it would work with the United States to expand two-way trade in agricultural products and ensure the stability of rare earth supplies in global supply chains, but did not say how.
China has not said when or what type of aircraft it will buy, but the deal with Boeing was one of the most concrete deliverables from the highly anticipated meeting between President Trump and Mr. Xi.
Still, Boeing stock fell after President Trump first released his sales forecast last Thursday. This is because the total number of aircraft was 500 fewer than expected. During President Trump’s last visit to Beijing, the United States announced an agreement to sell 300 Boeing planes to China, but most of them fell through.
Boeing’s commercial aircraft sales to China have stalled for the first time since President Trump began a trade war with China during his first term in 2017. The impasse deepened in 2019 when China became the first country to ground Boeing’s 737 MAX jets following two fatal crashes involving the aircraft.
China is the second largest aviation market in the world. In 2024, Boeing predicted that Chinese airlines would need nearly 9,000 new aircraft over the next 20 years. But Boeing has sold only 49 jets to China since 2018, most of them cargo planes. This is just a fraction of the more than 1,000 Boeing jets sold to Chinese customers over the previous decade.
According to both sides, the United States and China continue to work toward finalizing new trade and investment committees to promote bilateral trade and economic cooperation. While in Beijing, President Trump invited President Xi to visit the United States in September.
