MONTREAL -- Donald Trump has backed down on a threat to ban Bombardier Inc. plane sales in the United States, part of a broader cooling of rhetoric from the U.S. president after tempers flared and tariffs rose amid an earlier escalation in the trade war.
Speaking at a campaign rally Monday night, Trump said he's changed his perception of the Montreal-based business jet maker as a purely Canadian manufacturer.
"I'm going to be helping a certain air company get themselves straightened away," he told a crowd in a suburb of Wichita, Kan., where Bombardier employs 1,500 workers.
"I always viewed them as a Canadian company ... but now I find out they have a presence here, and we're not hurting them if they're in Kansas. So we'll take care of those people, all right, and the jobs."
Wichita serves as the home base of Bombardier's defence division. The company employs about 3,500 American workers across plants in Kansas, Texas, California and other states.
Kansans are already feeling first-hand the effects of the president's policies. Midwestern farmers have seen the diesel that powers their tractors and combines rise to near-record prices due to the Iran war. Kansas has now turned into a political battleground as Republicans and Democrats fight for control of the typically red state ahead of next month's midterm elections.
Trump said Monday that a phone call from Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall helped convince him to walk back his threat to halt Bombardier's business south of the border. Polls show Marshall is running neck and neck with Adam Hamilton, a Democrat in a state that has not elected one to the Senate since 1932.
Last month, Trump suggested he would bar Bombardier aircraft sales in the United States unless it moved its operations there, despite the harm experts said such a move would inflict on American workers.
"NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!" he posted on social media on Sept. 7. "If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a 'piggybank.'"
Bombardier said last month it pays more than US$2.5 billion to some 2,800 American suppliers across 47 states each year, indirectly supporting tens of thousands of jobs.
"The American aerospace industry is a clear winner on trade and exports," Bombardier stated at the time, adopting the language of the president and his fixation on triumph and trade surpluses.
America enjoys a US$109-billion aerospace and defence trade surplus with the world, according to the U.S. Aerospace Industries Association.
Bombardier does the final assembly of its Challenger and Global business jets in Canada, while more than half of its revenue stems from American customers.
Bombardier shares rose $8.63 or nearly three per cent to $320.10 by early Tuesday afternoon.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2026.
Companies in this story: (TSX:BBD.B)