US lifts GE export ban amid easing of China trade restrictions
The license reinstatement comes after several weeks of curbs affecting a range of exports, including high-value aerospace components. GE was officially notified this week that it could restart engine deliveries.
The move follows other U.S. concessions this week, including lifting restrictions on chip design software and ethane producers. While temporary, these steps suggest ongoing dialogue between the two countries despite their sharp trade rivalry.
GE Aerospace did not respond to a request for comment, and the Commerce Department, which issued the notification, also declined to comment.
The affected licenses include engines sold to China's state-owned aerospace manufacturer COMAC, which is developing aircraft to compete with Airbus (AIR.PA) and Boeing (BA.N) on the global stage.
A Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson welcomed the development:
"Dialogue and cooperation are the right path forward, while threats and coercion lead nowhere," they said. "The U.S. should continue to meet China halfway."
COMAC and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
The initial restrictions were introduced after China imposed export controls on rare earths and magnets, key materials in global technology supply chains. That move was in retaliation for a new wave of U.S. tariffs announced by President Trump earlier this year.
The license suspension lifted for GE covers its LEAP-1C engine, made for COMAC's C919 single-aisle aircraft, and its CF34 engine, used in the C909 regional jet, the person familiar with the matter said. The LEAP-1C is produced via a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France's Safran.
Although the C919 is manufactured in China, many of its critical parts are sourced from overseas suppliers.
At least one other aerospace company also had its license suspensions lifted on Thursday, another source said, without naming the firm.
Honeywell, which supplies COMAC with an auxiliary power unit, flight control system, wheels, brakes, and navigation equipment, did not respond to a request for comment.
Collins Aerospace, a unit of RTX, also declined to comment on its licensing status.
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Globe and Mail
10 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
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CBC
40 minutes ago
- CBC
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Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Truth will likely be the last casualty of war in Ukraine
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Already Mr. Putin, who appears to have profited the most from the summit, has registered a minor symbolic victory. 'They spent three years telling everyone Russia was isolated,' Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday, 'and today they saw the beautiful red carpet laid out for the Russian President in the U.S.' The Trump-Zelensky parley, like the one Mr. Trump held in Anchorage, Alaska, with Mr. Putin, is yet another example of the realpolitik in the line The Rolling Stones inserted 16 times into a 1969 hit song: 'You can't always get what you want.' Mr. Trump wants a swift resolution to the war. He may not get it. Mr. Putin wants a cessation of hostilities but only on his own terms and as part of a broader settlement. He's more likely to prevail. Mr. Zelensky wants a ceasefire before a peace settlement, which Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin now oppose, and he ultimately wants an end to the fighting but only if his country's dignity and sovereignty are preserved and the wartime casualties do not seem to have been in vain. That's the fulcrum of Monday's discussions in Washington. Already the terms of debate have shifted dramatically, just as the momentum in the war has bounced in the last several months between the two colliding armies, now exhausted but still in desperate mortal combat. Trump tells Zelensky that Putin demands more control of Ukraine, urges Kyiv to make a deal Mr. Trump has delivered several deadlines to Mr. Putin, all ignored, defied or forgotten. The U.S. President assured Mr. Macron that a ceasefire was the goal of Friday's conversations at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and then began his journey to the 49th state insisting he was working to win a ceasefire. By the time Mr. Trump was back in Washington, he was disavowing a ceasefire in favour of a broader settlement. ('The best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.') That was congruent with the view of Mr. Putin, who first wanted an unconditional military triumph and the annexation of Ukraine but apparently now will settle for the territorial gains he last week proscribed were the conditions for a 'promise' to end the war. One of the reasons the terms of diplomatic engagement (and military engagement) are constantly changing: the historical nature of Russia, a country itself constantly undergoing convulsive change and dramatic reversals. Russia was czarist before it was communist, then was capitalist and now is a one-man proto-dictatorship. It was allied with Nazi Germany before it was battling Nazi Germany. It was the clear leader in the Cold War space race (with the 1957 Sputnik launch and the pioneering 1961 orbital space flight of Yuri Gagarin, which were celebrated by Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev) before it was the clear laggard to the Americans (with Project Gemini, Project Apollo, and the 1969 redemption of President Kennedy's promise to land an American on the moon). The reprise line of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger's You Can't Always Get What You Want may offer a way for all three parties to view the almost certainly unsatisfying resolution to a war that has stretched well past three years: 'But if you try sometimes, you just might find/You get what you need.' For in the end, whenever it comes, all three parties may claim they got what they needed. It may be that truth is the first casualty of war. But the truth will also likely be the last casualty of the war in Ukraine.
