In the skies above the global economy, two aerospace giants have long circled each other in a rivalry older than many of the aircraft they build. When the European Investment Bank extended its largest corporate loan in history—three billion euros to Airbus—Boeing moved swiftly to draw Washington into the dispute, reviving a seventeen-year argument about where public support ends and unfair advantage begins. The moment arrives as both companies prepare for a new generation of aircraft and a new cycle of competition, testing whether a fragile 2021 truce can survive the pressures that made it nec