Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images White House Trump hails $20 billion in Boeing orders by Vietnam

President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised Vietnam for working to reduce the trade imbalance with the U.S. as Vietnamese carriers signed deals to buy Boeing jets and technologies valued at more than $20 billion.

VietJet is buying 100 Boeing 737-Max jets and 215 GE/CFM joint venture engines, and Bamboo Airways is buying 10 Boeing 787-9 jets. In addition, Vietnam Airlines is buying $100 million in services and technology from Sabre Corp.


Trump, who is in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, hailed the deals.

“We are going to be signing some very big trade deals,” Trump said at the top of a bilateral meeting with President Nguyen Phu Trong of Vietnam, adding that Vietnam was going to be “buying a lot of different products from the United States … which we appreciate,” according to a report from the press pool there.

Bamboo Airways is looking to open routes to the United States, which would be the first time a Vietnamese carrier could fly and codeshare with U.S. airlines, Yahoo Finance reported . The Federal Aviation Administration earlier this month declared Vietnam in compliance with international aviation standards.

Kevin McAllister, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and Allen Paxson, vice president and general manager of the CFM Program at GE Aviation, were present for the event.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect that it was Vietnamese air carriers who signed the deals with U.S. companies.