President Donald Trump Monday said he's a "little concerned" that a merger between United Technologies and Raytheon could hurt competition and make it hard for the government to negotiate defense contracts.
"We used to have many plane companies and they all merged, and now we have two main ones," Trump said during a call-in interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." "You have Lockheed and Boeing, they're all merged in, so it is hard to negotiate when you have two companies. When we have 10 or 12 companies, that may not be sustainable because they all go bust. That's the purpose of what they did. Nevertheless, I can tell you because I get involved in negotiations (we) got the plane costs down a lot."
Trump said he'd have an issue with United Technologies-Raytheon merger, announced on Sunday, "only if they have the same products. That would be the thing that bothers me the most.”
The companies announced their plans on Sunday to combine their operations, which will merge a huge aerospace business with a government defense contractor, making the new company, which will have an estimated value of $121 billion, the second-largest aerospace-and-defense company in the United States, trailing only Boeing.
Raytheon CEO Tom Kennedy told CNBC that the two companies are complementary, not competitive, and Greg Hayes, the United Technologies CEO and chairman who is to be CEO of the new merged company, said he's looking forward to speaking with Trump.
The two companies have a combined market value of close to $166 billion, and their stock price has gained more than 21% this year through record passenger plane orders and strong defense spending.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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