Slow licences, not bans: how US export friction is squeezing China's aircraft supply chain

The US is slowing export licences for aircraft parts bound for China, leaving COMAC and Chinese airlines guessing about spares, inventories and schedules.

The US Commerce Department has reportedly slowed export licences for aircraft parts heading to China and limited how many parts can ship to state-owned manufacturer COMAC, according to a Spherical Insights report. It lands while Washington and Beijing are still negotiating over trade and rare earths, and while China is trying to lock in support for a 200-aircraft Boeing order confirmed on May 20, 2026.

The detail that matters is what this is not. Nothing suggests a blanket ban, and licences are not being routinely rejected. The friction is in timing: approvals take longer, and the scale of the delays has not been quantified. That is still enough to hurt, because aviation runs on certified parts arriving when the maintenance schedule says they should.

An aircraft needs a steady stream of certified parts for its whole service life, not just at delivery. Image: Unsplash — a close up of a wall with a bunch of numbers on it

COMAC is the most exposed name. Its C919 uses the CFM International LEAP-1C engine, built by a GE Aerospace and Safran joint venture, so it depends on foreign suppliers as production ramps up. The reported goal of the cap is to stop COMAC from stockpiling inventory. A cap like that turns procurement into a guessing game: fewer authorised parts, or later ones, means harder choices about production schedules.

Then there is the Boeing order. China has asked for several years' worth of spares for those 200 aircraft, and the US has not guaranteed supply. Boeing says it remains committed to supporting Chinese airlines, but the company is not the one issuing licences. A fleet bought for roughly $17 billion to $19 billion, by IBA's estimate, is only as useful as its parts pipeline.

Washington is also weighing a rule that could make it easier to restrict landing gear and other components, with an early draft floating a licence requirement for aviation hydraulic fluid. None of this is in force, and the final list is undecided. Meanwhile the trade truce has been extended to January 10, 2027, with both sides cutting tariffs on about $30 billion of goods each way. So the carrot and the stick are running at the same time.

Our take: the licensing queue is a quieter lever than a ban, and arguably a more effective one, because it can be tightened or loosened without announcing anything. We would watch two things: whether the proposed landing-gear rule ever gets formalised, and whether the spares question for the Boeing fleet gets a concrete answer. For airlines everywhere, the lesson is old but newly sharp: you do not just buy an aircraft, you buy a decades-long supply relationship, and politics sits inside it.

Further reading: Why airlines retire aircraft before the end of their service… · UNO Aviation Students and Alumni Connect at LPA Aerospace Industry….

Opinion · If I were…

If I were a Chinese airline planning for 200 new Boeing jets, I would stop treating spares as a line item and start treating them as a strategic risk. Washington has not promised several years of parts, and it has not said no either.

I would build the longest buffer I could justify now, document every approval delay, and press Boeing hard on exactly what it can commit to. Ambiguity is the product here; plan around it.

Related articles from LaRebelión

Google pauses its open-source bug bounty as AI slop floods maintainersOpenAI Under Fire: California Subpoenas Rogue Hacking AgentsCapcom's Future: Transforming the RE Engine into an AI-Generation Platform

Original source: Spherical Insights

Produced with AI support and reviewed by the newsroom

Byline · Chief editor · English edition · London

“A licence that arrives late can do the work of a ban without anyone having to announce one.”