One of Boeing’s chief executives has detailed that the company is not worried about the impact of tariffs for the time being, in part due to the levels of inventory it had accumulated before Donald Trump, the President of the United States, began his crusade against the main trade partners of the US. No near-term impact On March 19, Brian West, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Vice President of Boeing, spoke during the Bank of America Global Industrials Conference, touching upon many topics related to the company’s business, including tariffs. According to West, Boeing has been watching the policy developments very closely, noting that the Trump administration is well aware of the importance of the US aviation industry to the country’s economy.
The CFO affirmed that in the near term, the company will not feel any impact due to the fact that it has a lot of inventory that it purchased before tariffs were enacted by Trump. “It is also important to understand that 80% of our commercial spend and over 90% of our defense spend in our supply chain is US-based.” In addition, Boeing sources nearly all of the headline-generating items like aluminum and steel in the US, with the pair accounting for around 1% or 2% of the cost of the aircraft.
Given its inventory levels and hedging strategies, the cost exposure to tariffs is even lower, West said. “What we do worry about is the availability of parts because this is a broad, complicated supply chain, and people.