Financial Times: US pressure gave Air India deal to Boeing

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, May 8, 2005

One of those lovely anonymous government sources tells the London business newspaper that Bush adminsitration “grousing” about US-India trade imbalances led to government-owned Air India deciding to buy 777s and 787s. According to this story, US trade officials are upset at all the information technology jobs that are being outsourced to Indian companies, so they leaned on their Indian counterparts.

Key (anonymous) quote: “The US never likes this kind of trade imbalance to last for very long and expects us to do something about it or else they will start flexing their muscles. The problem is not that we are being protectionist but that US industry is uncompetitive.”

My thinking … we already knew that US government officials lobbied on Boeing’s behalf. We also know that European government leaders did much the same thing for Airbus.

Anyway, here’s the link to The Financial Times story:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7b918d76-c026-11d9-b376-00000e2511c8.html

And here are some others:

http://www.iht.com/getina/files/244554.html

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69960

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1101738.cms