Bombardier’s American headquarters is not in some glass tower on a coast. It is in Wichita, Kansas, where the company runs a service center, a flight test operation, and its entire defense division. The company walked through its American operations in a statement Monday, listing sites in Kansas, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Connecticut, Illinois, Delaware, California, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., with employees in more than 20 states.
Over 3,000 Americans are employed by Bombardier. The wings for its top model jet, the fastest business jet in the world, are manufactured by American workers in Red Oak, Texas; vital flight-control parts are produced at one of its plants in the Los Angeles area; American firms also produce the engines and avionics used inside the aircraft, and a new service center which is to open later this year will be located in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
2,800 American Suppliers Across 47 States
The workforce directly employed by the company is only one part of the story; Bombardier purchases parts from about 2,800 American suppliers based in 47 states and pays them more than $2.5 billion each year, a practice which the company states supports tens of thousands of American jobs.
That is a company greatly reliant on customers in the United States, which is precisely the reason why Trump’s threat applies equally to both sides. Analysts anticipate that Bombardier will generate around $10.2 billion in revenue this year, and according to Trump’s own figures, over 50% of that revenue is derived from buyers in America. About half of the aircraft in Bombardier’s customer fleet are stationed at American airports. It would be impossible to isolate itself without the repercussions affecting this side of the border.
Even A Republican Senator Is Pushing Back
Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas is not exactly a member of the resistance. But within hours of the post, Moran reached out to the administration to make sure the president understands how many Kansas workers depend on Bombardier and its supply chain, both inside the Wichita facility and far beyond it.
It’s a situation that the Republicans have recently been in. Last month lawmakers from the cattle-producing areas were angry about Trump’s plan to import beef. This week a senator from Kansas is explaining aerospace jobs to a president who has just declared war on them from his phone.
The Army Is Buying The Jets Trump Says Aren’t Good Enough
What causes the ‘not good enough’ argument to fall apart is that the United States Army has chosen Bombardier’s Global 6500 as the basis for its new HADES spy plane programme and delivered the first aircraft to Bombardier’s head office in Wichita.
The American military looked at the marketplace, assessed the different options, and decided on the company which Trump now claims should be banned from doing business here. It is not possible for those two statements to both be true.
The Gulfstream Excuse Collapsed Months Ago
The reason that Trump has given is that Canada prevented Gulfstream Aerospace from carrying on business in the country. However, this complaint has now expired and it has been settled. In January Trump had threatened to strip Canada of its certification for Bombardier jets and to impose 50 per cent tariffs on all aircraft built in Canada unless Canada certified Gulfstream’s planes. Neither of those threats went through, and the following month Canada did certify a number of Gulfstream models.
The problem which Trump says he is taking action against regarding Canada has already been settled seven months ago. The threat has now outlived the reason for it.
A Trade War That Keeps Landing On His Own Voters
The timing was far from subtle since Trump had posted his threat hours before Canada introduced tariffs of 15% to 50% on hundreds of American products as a retaliatory measure for the tariffs he had imposed on Canadian goods.
The same escalation cycle which led to the imposition of 50% automatic and metal tariffs—tariffs that American companies had warned would increase their own costs, has once again been carried out, with each round being presented as a retaliation against Canada and each round ending with an American bill being incurred.
To make it clear, a post on Truth Social does not constitute a ban. There has been no announcement of any tariff, no quota, and no formal action taken against Bombardier. Nevertheless, the mere fact of the threat shows you which group this president is willing to offer as a bargaining chip, namely, the aerospace workers in Wichita, the wing builders in Red Oak, and the suppliers in 47 states. On the day which is meant to celebrate American labor, the U.S. president looked at thousands of American workers in the states that voted for him and treated their paychecks as leverage. They have a right to know this and to remember it.
