China has agreed to buy 200 ​Boeing jets, with a potential for the order to rise to as many as 750 planes, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on ‌Friday, adding that the planes would have GE Aerospace engines.

The deal "includes approximately 200 planes and a promise of up to 750 if they do a good job," Trump told reporters. More details on the deal, such as the type of jets and the delivery timeline, were not immediately available.

The orders, if finalized, would mark Boeing's first major Chinese deal in nearly a decade, after ​the U.S. planemaker was largely shut out of the world's second-largest aviation market amid trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Boeing said the deal involved "an initial ​commitment" for 200 aircraft and that it expected more such commitments to follow after what it described as the initial ⁠tranche.

The planemaker traditionally uses the word "commitments" to refer to preliminary deals that are yet to be finalized and are not posted on the company's official order backlog.

Boeing ​said it now looked forward "to continually addressing China's aircraft demand."

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and GE Aerospace chief Larry Culp were among the group of American executives who accompanied Trump to ​China in hopes of clinching deals or resolving business disputes.

Trump said China's Boeing orders include models 777 and 737 in an interview on Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier.

"He (Xi) committed to 200 Boeings, big ones, 777s, and 737s, and a lot of big, big ones, big, beautiful Boeing planes," Trump said in the interview aired on Friday evening.

For China, such a big order would secure capacity to ​keep growing its aviation market as production of its homegrown COMAC C919 narrow-body falls short of ambitious targets.

It would also help Boeing narrow the gap with rival ​Airbus, which has pulled far ahead in China in recent years.

An estimate from aviation intelligence and advisory firm IBA put the value of the 200-aircraft order at roughly $17 billion to $19 billion, ‌assuming 80% ⁠of the mix is made up of MAX jets.

"This number, however, could increase to $25 billion if a larger proportion (around 40%) of the total order is announced for the widebody aircraft," IBA's Samuel Kenekueyero said.

The deal would be a much-needed win for Trump, whose aggressive tariffs and other trade policies have so far failed to make much of a dent in the large U.S. trade deficit.

An order for more than 500 jets, if it materializes, would be the largest in aviation history, surpassing IndiGo's ​500-aircraft deal for Airbus narrowbodies, though China's ​purchase would likely be split among ⁠its three major state-run carriers.

ORDER SIZE BELOW EXPECTATIONS

Shares of the U.S. planemaker had dropped nearly 4% on Thursday after Trump told Fox News Channel China had agreed to buy 200 jets, well below analysts' expectations. They were down about 2.6% on Friday, ​while GE Aerospace shares fell 2%.

Industry sources have said Boeing was originally in negotiations for at least 500 narrowbody jets ​tied to the Beijing ⁠summit with dozens of widebody jets and potentially as many as 200 to follow at a later date.

Source: Reuters