Kansas aircraft industry, like farming, could lose business and jobs due to trade war | Opinion

President Donald Trump’s trade wars sure seem designed to take the Kansas economy out at the knees.

We have already talked a lot — and yet, maybe not enough — about how trade wars are bad for the Sunflower State’s farmers. How bad? Well, Sen. Jerry Moran has signed onto a bipartisan bill to restrain the president’s tariff powers.

Moran is usually a decent public servant, but directly challenging Trump isn’t often at the top of his priority list. His willingness to step out on this issue tells you something.

What we haven’t talked about much, though, is that Trump’s trade wars are shaping up to be pretty bad for the state’s aerospace industry.

Thousands of Kansans make a lot of airplanes and airplane parts and ship them all over the world. And not just in Wichita, the “Air Capital of the World.”

“There’s a great deal of aviation and aerospace sprinkled across the state, from Honeywell and Garmin in the Kansas City area, along with B/E Aerospace — which makes interiors in Johnson County — all the way down to Wichita and even over to Hays,” Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas, told me.

But Trump’s trade wars are shaping up to put a crimp in all that productivity.

This week, Beijing — stung by Trump’s new 145% on Chinese imports — ordered the country’s airlines to stop accepting deliveries of jets made by Boeing. The company’s stock plunged. Jobs are in the balance.

‘Debilitating and long-term effect’

What do Trump’s trade wars mean for Kansas? Consider this: The manufacture of airplanes and airplane parts brings the state, by one accounting, a whopping $25 billion a year. It’s the second-biggest industry we have.

A lot of that business is export-driven. According to the Kansas Department of Commerce, Kansas aerospace companies send more than $2.3 billion worth of products to the rest of the world every year. That accounts for nearly a fifth of the state’s total international exports.

Imagine what it means for Kansas — and Kansas workers — if all that business dries up.

Start with Boeing. The loss of China’s business is “not going to kill Boeing,” said Barrett-Gonzalez. “But what it will do is a much more debilitating and long-term effect. It will force foreign customers into the arms of Boeing’s archrival, Airbus.”

That’s bad for Boeing. And it’s bad for Kansas.

Wichita, after all, is home to a Spirit AeroSystems plant — the company says it employs 12,000 people there — which manufactures fuselages for Boeing. Boeing, in fact, is in the midst of buying back Spirit after spinning off the company in 2005.

Right now, though, Boeing stands to lose a fair chunk of business. In a “worst-case scenario,” the trade wars may mean it can sell plans only to U.S. customers.

“Airbus,” one industry executive told CNBC in March, “will end up with the rest of the world.”

‘High-tech, skilled employment’

Boeing is just the most obvious example of how trade wars are bad for Kansas’ aircraft industry.

They’re also bad for Kansans. KU and Wichita State University are home to world-class aerospace engineering programs that turn out ferociously smart young people who design and build the future.

But a “nontrivial number” of Barrett-Gonzalez’ students have recently had job offers in the industry rescinded, he said. That’s “a natural response of companies to uncertainty.”

Trump, of course, excels at creating uncertainty. That’s not a good thing.

“The state depends upon the aerospace industry for high-tech, skilled employment,” Barrett-Gonzalez said. “And so it’s very, very worrisome that what seems to be capricious politics could wind up costing Kansas jobs and livelihoods.”

Other choices are possible. Trump could change course. Or Congress could follow Moran’s path and reclaim its tariff authority. Unless that happens, though, the Kansas economy will have trouble staying airworthy.