March 25, 2025
The Air Current is the exclusive media partner of The Aerospace Event. The discussions at the event were conducted under the Chatham House Rule, allowing publication but not attribution of information shared to facilitate more candid and valuable conversations at the annual event in Beverly Hills, California. A defense focused edition of The Aerospace Event will be hosted in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 13-14, 2025.
Geopolitics is top of mind. One sliver of the rapidly shifting global dynamic is a lack of clarity about how new U.S. tariffs on goods coming from Canada, Mexico and China will be paid as aerospace parts cross borders, sometimes multiple times, on their way through the manufacturing or aftermarket sales process. No one is clear about who will pay, where and when they’ll pay, what they’ll apply to or if those new tariff costs (which are determined by the declared value of the import) can be passed on to customers or suppliers, but fundamentally it means an inflated cost of doing business for someone in the chain. More importantly, no one knows what will stick and for how long and this makes planning and investment during a period of production acceleration even more challenging as manufacturers weigh the impact on demand for air travel and the need for defense products. Even if demand does come down, retirements of older airliners will likely occur first before deliveries of new aircraft are deferred (a la United), but suppliers are prioritizing changing defense postures for future industrial capacity.
