OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatened Monday to scrap his government’s planned purchase of Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets in direct retaliation for the U.S. company’s trade complaint against Bombardier.

Flanked by British Prime Minister Theresa May, who had expressed fears that jobs at a Bombardier plant in Northern Ireland could be hit by Boeing’s trade actions against the Canadian company, Trudeau upped the ante in the increasingly bitter trade dispute with the United States.

“We have obviously been looking at the Super Hornet aircraft from Boeing as a potential significant procurement of our new fighter jets,” said Trudeau.

“But we won’t do business with a company that’s busy trying to sue us and put our aerospace workers out of business.”

The ultimatum to Boeing comes as the U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to rule next week on the Boeing complaint. The Liberal government last week said Boeing walked out of talks to resolve the commercial dispute.

Trudeau’s threat came moments after May lent her support to Canada. May said she raised her concerns about what she and Trudeau believe is an unfair trade move against Bombardier in a call last week with President Donald Trump. The British PM said she intends to raise the issue again when she meets Trump at the United Nations in New York this week.

“I will be impressing upon him the significance of Bombardier to the United Kingdom and particularly, obviously, to Northern Ireland. And we have discussed today how we can work together to see a resolution of this issue which, from my point of view, I want to see a resolution that protects those jobs in Northern Ireland,” May told reporters.

Trudeau and May agreed to work toward a “seamless transition” to a new trade deal between Canada and the U.K. after Britain negotiates its exit from the European Union.

Both said the Canada-European Trade Agreement (CETA), which takes effect this week and lifts 98 per cent of tariffs and other trade barriers between Canada and the European Union, would provide the basis for future Canada-U.K. trade relations.

Trudeau said the U.K., which is Canada’s largest trading partner in Europe, is a signatory to the CETA and he is confident any new arrangement will keep “the essence of CETA applicable to the U.K..”

Britain is barred by European law from negotiating other trade deals with non-EU countries in the interim, and neither leader would say if they agreed to formal talks. However, May said “we will be having a working group which obviously will be looking at the details of how that will, how that transition will operate in detail.”

But trade irritants south of the border dominated. Trudeau condemned Boeing, saying its motivation for launching the trade complaint against Bombardier is “extremely narrow” and “for trade-related reasons linked to their own profits.”

“That’s not the way the world should operate.”

In a statement Monday, Bombardier piled on. It accused Boeing of “pure hypocrisy” and “self-serving actions” that threaten thousands of jobs and billions in contracts with suppliers in the U.S. and the U.K. The Montreal-based company said Boeing’s move threatens to add “an indirect tax on the U.S. flying public through unjustified import tariffs.”

In an emailed statement sent to the Star, Boeing officials pushed back at Trudeau, saying “Boeing is not suing Canada.”

“This is a commercial dispute with Bombardier, which has sold its C-Series airplane in the United States at absurdly low prices, in violation of U.S. and global trade laws.”

Boeing contends Bombardier sold airplanes in the U.S. for millions less than it has sold them in Canada, and millions less than it costs Bombardier to build them.

“This is a classic case of dumping, made possible by a major injection of public fund,” the statement sent by Boeing representative Daniel Curran. “This violation of trade law is the only issue at stake at the U.S. Department of Commerce. We like competition. It makes us better. And Bombardier can sell its aircraft anywhere in the world. But competition and sales must respect globally-accepted trade law.”

The Trudeau government vowed during the 2015 campaign it would not buy expensive F-35 aircraft to replace Canada’s aging F-18s, and it said last year Ottawa would look to buy 18 Super Hornets — produced by Boeing — to meet Canada’s military obligations while it restarts the competition to find a long-term replacement.

However, after Delta Air Lines agreed to purchase the Bombardier C-Series planes for its passenger fleet, Boeing filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Commerce Department. It challenges support from Ottawa and the Quebec government for Bombardier’s C-series passenger jet program as unfair trade subsidies.

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The Canadian aerospace company said Monday it “shares Boeing’s commitment to a level playing field, but in this case, they were not even on the field.” It said Delta ordered the C-Series “because Boeing stopped making an aircraft of the size Delta needed years ago. It is pure hypocrisy for Boeing to say that the C-Series launch pricing is a ‘violation of global trade law’ when Boeing does the same for its new aircraft.”

Conservative defence critic James Bezan said Trudeau’s rhetoric is inflammatory, unhelpful and that the government should simply get on with an open competition and buy new planes. Bezan admitted that in government, the Conservatives wanted to buy the Lockheed Martin F-35 because, he said, that’s what the military wanted and it would be interoperable with Canada’s allies who were also flying F-35s. Bezan said it was “a rational decision” at the time, but the party’s position has shifted.

“We don’t have a preferred option; we just say have the competition and have it now,” Bezan said. “If the government is saying Boeing is no longer a trusted partner then we should go to the competition and find a trusted partner.”

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said he agreed that Boeing is “acting in bad faith” but he mocked Trudeau’s rhetoric, saying the Liberal government has not signed any deal, and so has nothing to scrap or hold over the Americans.

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