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By Gianluca Lo Nostro
(Reuters) - Airbus could prioritise deliveries to non-U.S. customers if tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump were to disrupt the company's imports in the country, CEO Guillaume Faury said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.
Trump said on Wednesday he will announce new tariffs over the next month or sooner, adding to duties he has introduced since taking office, which could affect the aerospace industry and its suppliers among other sectors.
"We have a large demand from the rest of the world, so [if] we face very significant difficulties to deliver to the U.S., we can also adapt by bringing forward deliveries to other customers which are very eager to get planes", Faury said.
Earlier in the day, he had told journalists while presenting Airbus' annual results in Toulouse that the group "should not be directly impacted by tariffs".
"Indeed, we are buying a lot from the U.S. We are selling to the U.S., we manufacture, we assemble, we develop in the U.S. like few other companies ... and we believe tariffs in this industry would be lose-lose," he said at the press conference.
Airbus spends 15 billion euros ($15.70 billion) annually with its network of more than 2,000 suppliers in the U.S., which is the largest single supplier to the company, according to the company's website.
The France-based planemaker, the main rival of Boeing, has expanded U.S. operations in recent years, with its Alabama plant employing more than 2,000 people in the final assembly of the A320 and A220 aircraft family.
But the group is having to deal with supply chain bottlenecks that are straining an aerospace industry already challenged by a shortage of experienced workers.
Airbus excluded the potential impact from threatened trade tariffs from the 2025 financial guidance it disclosed on Thursday, saying it will adapt accordingly.
"We have not taken major actions so far... we are more in a wait-and-see mode," Faury told analysts during the company's earnings call.
($1 = 0.9555 euros)
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro, additional reporting by Alessandro Parodi; editing by Jane Merriman)
