Washington, September 15, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
US workers at Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier are growing concerned about their jobs after President Donald Trump threatened to restrict the company’s aircraft, raising fears about the domestic impact of his escalating trade dispute with Canada.
The Washington Post reported that anxiety has spread among Bombardier employees in Wichita, Kansas, where the company employs about 1,500 people.
“This is ridiculous. We have thousands of Americans working here, and I don’t want to be thinking about losing my job,” one employee told the newspaper.
Trump made the threat in a social media post last week, criticising Bombardier’s products as not “good enough” and calling for more manufacturing to be shifted to the US. “If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank,’” he wrote.
No formal action has been taken by the administration so far. The White House has also not specified what a potential ban would cover or which Bombardier operations it wants relocated to the US.
Bombardier employs another 2,000 people elsewhere in the country, with service centres in Arizona, Texas, Florida and Connecticut. The company manufactures aircraft wings in Texas and flight-control components in California and is planning a new service centre in Indiana. Final assembly of its business jets is carried out in Canada.
“I’m scared about what this might mean for my job and my family,” a longtime Bombardier engineer in Wichita told The Washington Post, adding that many American workers had been caught up in the wider dispute.
Bombardier has emphasised its US footprint, with a company spokesperson saying there were no changes to its operations “at this time”.
The threat has caused concern in Wichita, a major aviation manufacturing hub known as the “Air Capital of the World”. Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell, a Republican, warned that a ban would be devastating to Bombardier and a major loss for the region.
Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas has contacted the White House and urged Bombardier to increase its Wichita workforce to more than 3,000. He argued that because the US accounts for more than half of Bombardier’s sales, a greater share of its aircraft should be built domestically.
Bombardier acquired the Learjet brand in 1990 and continued production in Wichita until ending Learjet manufacturing there in 2022. Its remaining Kansas operations include aircraft maintenance, testing and engineering.
The US and Canadian aviation industries remain closely integrated, with aircraft and components frequently crossing the border during production. Trump issued a similar threat in January involving Bombardier jet certifications and a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian aircraft, but those measures were not implemented.
FOLLOW NOW
