Boeing Co. has begun flying 737 Max jets that were refused by Chinese airline customers back to the US, as the trade war between the two biggest economies escalates.

On April 15 and 16, 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that China had halted or canceled all its orders of airplanes from the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. An X post of a news report on the topic was captioned: 🚨JUST IN: China has just CANCELED all jet orders from American manufacturer Boeing to in response to President Trump hitting the country with tariffs as high as 145% on Chinese goods.

A Boeing jet earmarked for China was returning to the United States on Friday, flight tracking data showed, as the planemaker's flagship delivery plant outside Shanghai was drawn into a deepening tariff war between Beijing and Washington.