Boeing got the easy part done. Now comes the tougher, existential problems

Boeing’s most immediate problem – an eight-week strike by 33,000 workers – is over. But its more serious problems – ongoing massive losses, quality and safety problems – are as bad as ever, and could even get worse.

Boeing’s most immediate problem – an eight-week strike by 33,000 workers – is over. But its more serious problems – ongoing massive losses, quality and safety problems – are as bad as ever, and could even get worse. The last of those strikers return to work on Tuesday, but it will take weeks before airplanes start rolling off the production lines again, the company said Tuesday. It’ll be even longer before everything is back to pre-strike production levels. “This isn’t something that there’s just a light switch that flips,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg warned investors last month, even before machinists union members agreed to a deal. “We’re probably going to have a little bumpy return.” And as nearly $40 billion in losses since 2019 have demonstrated, the pre-strike situation at Boeing was far from rosy. Boeing’s outlook is still very troubled. Even with years of problems, it remains crucial to the American manufacturing base and economy. So its monumental challenges are important for far more than just one company. Among the most serious problems Boeing faces is President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to impose large tariffs on imports from China.