2019年6月27日，华盛顿西雅图，波音737 MAX飞机存放在波音机场附近的员工停车场。
特朗普总统表示，如果波音公司高管请求帮助应对全球COVID-19流感大流行导致的金融危机，他的政府将采取行动帮助波音公司。
他周五在白宫冠状病毒特别工作组的每日简报中回答记者提问时说，政府官员将在即将举行的与航空业官员的会议上会见波音公司高管。
特朗普表示:“我们将与波音公司会面，我们将与许多公司会面，这些公司都是伟大的公司，不久前还是伟大的公司。”。
总统还说，美国“不能让波音发生任何事情”
“你知道，它有很大的潜力，”他说。
财政部为波音公司拨出了高达170亿美元的援助，作为航空业救市计划的一部分，该计划被立法者纳入了“关爱法案”(CARES Act)，即特朗普最近签署成为法律的2万亿美元刺激法案。但是航空航天巨头还没有正式要求任何援助，根据报道，由于冠状病毒相关的衰退造成的经济衰退，仍在考虑裁员10%。
特朗普回避了一个问题，即该航空航天公司在接受援助后是否会因裁员而受到惩罚。
相反，他周五表示，该公司的飞机现在据称非常复杂，需要麻省理工学院的学位才能驾驶它们，但他补充说，该公司“可能是世界上最伟大的公司”，并发誓提供帮助。
“当他们看到我们时，确保波音再次强大是非常非常强大和非常重要的，我们将做任何必要的事情，”他补充道。
1997年，波音公司收购了其主要竞争对手麦克唐纳-道格拉斯公司，成为美国唯一一家民用客机制造商。
从那以后，该公司的民用航空部门就陷入了与欧洲同行空中客车公司(Airbus SE)的激烈竞争中，两家公司都经常指控对方非法受益于各种形式的政府合同和补贴。
这家总部位于西雅图的航空巨头在2019年也遭遇了一些公众尴尬。
去年12月，该公司的美国宇航局委托的太空胶囊，波音星际飞机，未能到达国际空间站，在一个授权的测试飞行为航天局的商业载人飞船计划。
这起令人尴尬的事故被发现是由于软件缺陷造成的，再加上在两起致命事故后，公司737 Max飞机经过一年多的重新设计后，未能获得重返飞行的批准，导致前首席执行官丹尼斯·米伦伯格在1月份被解职。
TRUMP PROMISES U.S. WILL DO 'WHATEVER IS NECESSARY' TO HELP BOEING AFTER IT SAYS IT'S EXPLORING LAYING OFF 10 PERCENT OF WORKFORCE
Boeing 737 MAX airplanes are stored on employee parking lots near Boeing Field, on June 27, 2019 in Seattle, Washington.
President Trump said his administration would take action to help Boeing if company executives request assistance in coping with the financial downturn caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
Administration officials would meet with Boeing executives during an upcoming meeting with airline industry officials, he said Friday while responding to reporters' questions during the White House Coronavirus Task Force's daily briefing.
"We're going to be meeting with Boeing, we're going to be meeting with a lot of companies that are great companies and were great companies a short while ago," Trump said.
The president also said that the U.S. "can't let anything happen to Boeing."
"It's, you know, got so much potential," he said.
The Treasury Department set aside up to $17 billion in aid for Boeing as part of the airline industry rescue package lawmakers included in the CARES Act, the $2 trillion stimulus legislation that Trump recently signed into law. But the aerospace giant has not yet formally requested any of the aid available to it, and according to reports, is still considering laying off up to 10 percent of its workforce due to the downturn caused by the coronavirus-related recession.
Trump sidestepped a question about whether the aerospace company could be penalized for laying off its workforce after receiving the aid.
Instead, he said Friday that the company's planes are now allegedly so complex that a Massachusetts Institute of Technology degree is necessary to fly them, but nonetheless added the company was "probably the greatest company in the world" and vowed to help.
"When they see us, making sure that Boeing is strong again is very very powerful and very important, and we'll do whatever is necessary to do," he added.
Boeing became the United States' sole remaining manufacturer of civil airliners in 1997 when it acquired its main competitor, the McDonnell-Douglas corporation.
Since then, the company's civilian airline division has been locked in cutthroat competition with its European counterpart, Airbus SE, with both companies frequently charging that the other illegally benefits from various forms of government contracts and subsidies.
The Seattle-based aviation giant has also suffered a number of public embarrassments over the course of 2019.
In December, the company's NASA-commissioned space capsule, the Boeing Starliner, failed to reach the International Space Station during a mandated test flight for the space agency's Commercial Crew Vehicle program.
The embarrassing mishap was found to be the result of a software bug, and combined with the failure to gain approval for the company's 737 Max aircraft to return to flight after more than a year of redesigns following two fatal accidents, led to former CEO Dennis Muilenburg's ouster in January.
