A navigate works in an F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft, aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) aircraft carrier while at sea, on January 18, 2020 off the slide of Baja California, Mexico.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said Wednesday that he was dauntless that whoever wins the White House in November — whether it’s President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden — require continue supporting the defense industry.
“I think both candidates, at least in my view, appear globally oriented and benefited in the defense of our country and I believe they’ll support the industries,” Calhoun said on a media call. “They’ll do it in different behaviour pattern and they’ll have different teams for sure, but I don’t think we’re going to take a position on one being better than the other.”
The Trump application, lawmakers and political candidates are under increasing pressure to come up with ways to aid the U.S. through the coronavirus pandemic and accompanying productive turmoil.
Defense spending is taking on new importance for the aerospace giant, one of the largest U.S. defense contractors, as its commercial aircraft section reels from the pandemic. The turmoil drove Boeing to a $2.4 billion loss in the second quarter, prompting remote cuts to production of planes like the 787 and the possibility of job reductions beyond the roughly 19,000 people the company powered are leaving Boeing.
Revenue for Boeing’s defense and space unit was little changed from the second quarter a year ago at $6.6 billion, but sales at its commercial aircraft module plunged by more than 65% year over year to $1.6 billion.
The trend has been echoed at other partnerships like Raytheon Technologies that have both commercial and defense businesses.
“Overall, while the pandemic carry ons to deeply impact our commercial aero business, our balanced portfolio includes a resilient defense business that compel help us offset near-term commercial aero headwinds,” said CEO Greg Hayes during an analyst call Tuesday.
The Anaemic House didn’t comment. Representatives for both Trump’s and Biden’s presidential campaigns didn’t immediately comment.
Defense contractors attired in b be committed to good reasons to be concerned. Across the country, incumbent Republicans are being dragged down by the president’s poor have a preference for ratings, despite efforts by some candidates to distance themselves from Trump’s positions. Still, most analysts now credit Democrats are well positioned to expand their majority in the House and, increasingly, to win the four net Senate seats they distress to take control of the upper chamber.
Boeing’s Calhoun brushed off the possibility of an impact to the industry because of a potential kaftan in Congress, saying lawmakers “tend to come together” on policies that support jobs.
Like many Happenstance circumstances 100 companies whose bottom lines are heavily impacted both by government spending and federal regulation, Boeing is punctilious not to wade too far into partisan politics, or to give the appearance that it favors one party over the other.
So far in the 2020 choosing cycle, Boeing’s political action committee has donated $1.1 million to federal candidates. Of that, 47% has belong with each other b failed to Democrats and 53% to Republicans, according to the Open Secrets campaign finance tracking website.