Boeing has delivered its first commercial aircraft to a Chinese airline since the United States and China agreed to roll back some of the tariffs imposed during the bruising trade war that began under President Donald Trump.

The handover of a 787-9 Dreamliner to Juneyao Air, which took off from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, on Friday en route to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, is being seen as a key sign that trade relations between the world’s two largest economies are beginning to stabilize.

The aircraft delivery, tracked via Flightradar24, had been delayed for a long as China imposed retaliatory duties on U.S. goods, including Boeing aircraft after the U.S. government slapped tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese exports in 2018. At the height of the dispute, both sides had imposed tit-for-tat tariffs covering goods ranging from semiconductors to soybeans, snarling global supply chains and freezing aircraft orders. The Chinese government, in protest, largely suspended approval for new Boeing purchases and slowed or blocked deliveries of already completed jets.

But this recent delivery comes just days after Beijing and Washington reached a partial agreement to reduce or suspend select tariffs on key industrial and consumer goods, including aerospace components. While the full details of the deal remain under wraps, U.S. officials confirmed that the Trump administration had agreed to delay further tariff hikes on Chinese-made electronics and auto parts, while China had signaled readiness to reopen its market to U.S. aircraft and agricultural exports. Both sides also committed to resuming bilateral talks to address broader trade imbalances and technology transfer concerns.

The breakthrough appears to be yielding tangible results. Earlier this week, a Boeing 737 Max aircraft designated for Xiamen Airlines landed at the company’s Zhoushan delivery facility in China, a move widely interpreted as a signal that China is once again preparing to accept U.S. jetliners. On Friday, a second 737-8 Max also departed from Boeing Field in Seattle, heading across the Pacific via Hawaii en route to China — further evidence that the delivery pipeline, which had been effectively frozen, is now beginning to thaw.

The resumption of deliveries is critical for Boeing. The U.S. planemaker has about 85 completed aircraft originally ordered by Chinese customers that have been sitting undelivered, some for years. China had been Boeing’s largest overseas market before the trade war and before the prolonged grounding of the 737 Max following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Now, with Chinese airlines grappling with a rebound in passenger demand and a growing need to modernize their fleets, the thaw in trade relations comes at a pivotal moment. The delivery of the Juneyao Dreamliner, in particular, offers hope for Boeing’s 787 program, which has been under pressure following a recent crash involving an Air India Express 787, and broader scrutiny over safety and quality control lapses.

Industry analysts say the move also underscores China’s strategic calculus in balancing its domestic aviation ambitions — particularly the commercial rollout of the C919 jet by COMAC — with the need to maintain a diversified fleet that includes advanced U.S.-made aircraft. Airbus has aggressively expanded its footprint in China in recent years, striking multiple deals and even opening final assembly lines. Boeing’s renewed access signals a potential rebalancing of that competitive dynamic.

For now, the deliveries remain modest. But they could grow quickly. Boeing has reportedly lined up nearly 50 aircraft for Chinese customers this year, and the latest movements suggest that regulatory bottlenecks are easing. More broadly, the delivery reflects a significant softening of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing after more than five years.

The tariff dispute, which began in early 2018 when Trump imposed sweeping levies on Chinese steel, aluminum, and later on over $200 billion worth of other products, marked the most significant rupture in U.S.-China trade in decades. It led to $550 billion worth of tariffs being levied by both countries and severely disrupted sectors like technology, automotive, and aviation.

The delivery of Boeing jets, therefore, is more than just a business transaction — it’s a diplomatic barometer.

Google is severing ties with Scale AI following Meta’s shock announcement of acquiring a 49% stake in the AI data-labeling startup, Reuters reports, citing sources.

The deal, which values Scale at $29 billion, more than double its previous $14 billion valuation — has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, triggering an exodus by major AI companies wary of exposing proprietary research and sensitive data to a direct competitor.

Sources familiar with the development say Google had planned to pay Scale nearly $200 million in 2025 for human-labeled training data crucial to the development of its Gemini models. But that arrangement has now been scrapped. The company, reportedly Scale’s largest client, is moving swiftly to redirect contracts to rival vendors. Already, Google has begun talking to multiple Scale competitors this week in a bid to offload most of its AI annotation needs.

This rapid shift stems from rising concerns about Meta — parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — gaining access to privileged data from companies it competes with directly in the artificial intelligence arms race. Meta now has a powerful foothold in the AI infrastructure backbone, by owning nearly half of Scale AI and absorbing its CEO Alexandr Wang into its AI division.

The Deal Was A Silent Coup

The Meta-Scale partnership came together quietly but swiftly. Multiple sources suggest the deal was orchestrated over the past several months as Meta aggressively sought to bolster its AI development following underwhelming reviews of its Llama 4 model released in April. While the model showed promise, it failed to match the performance of OpenAI’s GPT-4 or Google’s Gemini in key benchmarks, prompting fears Meta was falling behind.

To accelerate its progress, Meta turned to Scale AI, which built a reputation since its founding in 2016 as the premium supplier of high-quality, human-labeled datasets — a crucial resource for training advanced AI systems. Scale’s services are not cheap: some annotations by PhD-level experts can cost upwards of $100 each. But its clients, which include Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, xAI, and the U.S. government, were willing to pay for precision.

With Wang set to lead Meta’s AI efforts and several Scale employees also transitioning to the company, the deal raises alarm for rival firms. Many of them rely on Scale for labeling not just raw data, but also prototype model outputs, internal prompts, and context-rich examples that are core to their development strategies. Now, those same companies fear their crown jewels could end up within Meta’s line of sight.

Industry Backlash Gathers Pace

The backlash has been swift with Google, Microsoft, Elon Musk’s xAI, and even OpenAI — which had already begun reducing its reliance on Scale months ago — all walking away. Google in particular is moving fast to dismantle all key contracts with Scale. Although the exact timeline varies by agreement, the sources say the shift could be completed quickly due to the flexible structure of many data-labeling deals.

Labelbox, Turing, Handshake, and Mercor — smaller competitors once overshadowed by Scale’s dominance — are now witnessing a surge in demand. Labelbox’s CEO expects to generate hundreds of millions in new revenue from defecting clients. Handshake said its workload tripled within 24 hours of the Meta-Scale announcement. Turing’s CEO summed up the mood across the industry: “Neutrality is no longer optional, it’s essential.”

OpenAI, despite spending far less than Google on Scale services, has reiterated it will continue working with Scale but emphasized that the startup is only one of many vendors. Elon Musk’s xAI, meanwhile, is said to be preparing to exit completely. Microsoft has not commented publicly but is also believed to be shifting its data-labeling contracts.

A Strategic Gamble for Meta — and a Risk for Scale

The deal is undoubtedly a win for Meta. Alexandr Wang’s appointment is expected to inject new technical vigor into Meta’s AI roadmap. But for Scale AI, the Meta alliance could come at a high cost. Much of the company’s revenue — $870 million in 2024 — comes from providing services to companies that now view it as compromised. Unlike its government and automotive contracts, which may be insulated from competitive threats, the lucrative generative AI sector that powered its growth now stands on shaky ground.

The company’s statement following the deal tried to project stability, insisting that its business “remains strong” and that it is committed to customer data protection. But it did not comment directly on the specifics of Google’s departure or the ongoing client exodus.

Beyond immediate business impacts, the Meta-Scale deal is expected to reshape the AI industry’s supply chain. Companies have come to recognize that control over data infrastructure — including labeling, annotation, and fine-tuning processes — is just as critical as access to GPUs or large model architectures. This realization is pushing more labs to build in-house data-labeling teams and secure their own AI training pipelines, even at greater cost.

Meta’s strategic bet on acquiring a direct line into that ecosystem is high-risk, high-reward. While it stands to gain a wealth of internal capability through Scale and Wang, the fallout may permanently alienate Meta from industry collaborations at a time when AI research increasingly hinges on trust, interoperability, and data security.

In the end, what Meta gains in scale, it may lose in credibility, at least in the eyes of its fiercest AI rivals.