Boeing announced Tuesday that it has agreed to sell up to 60 airplanes, valued at $6 billion, to an Iranian airline, even as the Trump administration has expressed its animosity toward Tehran, The Wall Street Journal reports. Boeing said it has nevertheless received early permission from the U.S. government to move ahead with the sale, although it still needs to be approved by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
In March 2016, Trump stated: "My number-one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran." He was referring to the Obama administration's agreement over a year ago to remove sanctions on Iran in return for the country voluntarily curbing its nuclear programs. As part of the deal, Boeing and Airbus won billion-dollar deals to sell planes to Iran Air. Tuesday's sale is to the privately-owned Iran Aseman Airlines.
Boeing said Tuesday that based on government data, "an aerospace sale of this magnitude creates or sustains approximately 18,000 jobs." It remains to be seen if Trump will indicate support for the deal, perhaps simply by not criticizing it on Twitter.