The US-China trade war is ensnaring one of America’s global industrial icons.

China has ordered its airlines not to take any further deliveries of Boeing jets, Bloomberg News reports from Beijing today. The Chinese government has also asked that domestic carriers halt any purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from US companies.

Shares of the planemaker slid as much as 4.6% in premarket trading.

The move is seen as part of the ongoing trade war, with China imposing retaliatory tariffs of 125% on American goods, including aircraft and parts.

About 10 Boeing 737 Max aircraft are preparing to enter Chinese airline fleets, including two each for China Southern Airlines, Air China and Xiamen Airlines, based on data from Aviation Flights Group.

Some of the jets are parked near Boeing’s factory base in Seattle while others are at a finishing center in Zhoushan in eastern China, according to the production-tracking firm’s website.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Juneyao Airlines was delaying delivery of a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft that it was due to receive in about three weeks.

Read More: Xi’s Visit Shows Vietnam’s Balancing Act as Trump’s Tariffs Loom

Meanwhile, it doesn’t sound like the world’s two largest economies are close to starting negotiations while the escalations continue and both sides jockey for leverage.

On Monday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News that “the president has been very clear that he’s willing to talk to his counterpart” in China. Trump expects “that at some point we’ll have talks” but “we’re not there yet,” Greer said.

China will only engage in talks with the US if its leaders show respect toward Beijing, according to a former top Chinese economic official. 

“If the US wants China to totally accept the US proposal, to accept the US conditionality, I think there’s no negotiation,” Zhu Guangyao, who was China’s Vice Minister of Finance from 2010 to 2018, said in an interview in Singapore.

—Brendan Murray in London

Bloomberg’s tariff tracker follows all the twists and turns of global trade wars. Click here for more of Bloomberg.com’s most-read stories about trade, supply chains and shipping.

Charted Territory

Port slowdown | The volume of goods processed by Chinese ports slowed last week for the first time since the Lunar New Year holiday — a trend that will undercut the value of exports going forward if it continues. China’s ports handled 244 million tons of cargo last week, 10% less than a week earlier and down 4% from the same week in 2024, according to Ministry of Transport data released Monday. 

Today’s Must Reads

• China’s job market is struggling, with as many as 20 million people potentially exposed to US-bound exports and a 30% drop in job openings over the past two months.
• The Trump administration pressed ahead with plans to impose tariffs on semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports by initiating trade probes led by the Commerce Department.
• India’s trade deficit widened in March  rushes to evade the worst of Trump’s trade actions.
• Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the rationale for Trump’s tariff policies was “unclear and not at all sensible,” adding she believes China would like to “de-escalate this conflict.”
• The dollar is struggling to regain its mojo as the Australian and New Zealand dollars become its latest Group-of-10 peers to decisively pull away from any “Liberation Day” losses against the greenback.
• The unfolding trade war is worsening existing challenges for UK employment recruiters, which have been feeling the effects of a weak labor market and dwindling hiring budgets.
• Investor confidence in Germany’s economy plummeted as Trump’s on-off trade measures threaten to choke off a nascent recovery.

On the Bloomberg Terminal

• Trump’s erratic trade moves are hurting business at one of Europe’s largest logistics hubs. At the port in Duisburg, Germany, shipping companies are taking departures out of their timetables.
• The global trade war has unexpectedly triggered a dollar selloff, giving central banks in Asian emerging markets leeway to be more aggressive with rate cuts, Fitch Ratings chief economist Brian Coulton said in a briefing.
• For Bloomberg Economics trade analysis: BECO MODELS TRADE
• Run SPLC after an equity ticker on Bloomberg to show critical data about a company's suppliers, customers and peers.
• Use the AHOY function to track global commodities trade flows.
• See DSET CHOKE for a dataset to monitor shipping chokepoints. 
• For freight dashboards, see BI RAIL, BI TRCK and BI SHIP and BI 3PLS
• Click HERE for automated stories about supply chains.
• On the Bloomberg Terminal, type NH FWV for FreightWaves content.
• See BNEF for BloombergNEF’s analysis of clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials, and commodities.

Don’t keep it to yourself. Colleagues and friends can sign up here. We also publish Economics Daily, a briefing on the latest in global economics.

For even more: Follow @economics on Twitter and subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and gain expert analysis from exclusive subscriber-only newsletters.

How are we doing? We want to hear what you think about this newsletter. Let our trade tsar know.