While most people know Boeing as the company that makes airplanes, Boeing is also one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers and war profiteering companies. Boeing produces and sells bombs, missiles, helicopters and other technologies of war to militaries, making tens of billions of dollars of profit from war and militarized violence every year. And after the City of Chicago finally stopped funneling millions of dollars to Boeing for having had their corporate headquarters here for the past 20 years, the state of Illinois is now funding the construction of a new Boeing drone facility.

This multi-billion dollar drone facility is set to open in 2024, where the MQ-25 Stingray (autonomous military drones) will be produced on behalf of the US Navy. Producing these military drones will inevitably lead to violence and surveillance of marginalized communities globally. The decision to build in Illinois was due to the state funneling taxpayer money to incentivize big corporations like Boeing. Approved in 2021, Boeing will receive a multi-million dollar Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) tax credit, redirecting more taxpayer dollars away from public resources and into corporate tax breaks and profit for Boeing.

We are calling on Governor Pritzker and the State of Illinois to end its investment in Boeing, a company that profits from weapons sales and state violence around the world. As residents of Illinois, we want to see an end to our tax dollars funding Boeing operations that fuel genocide in Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, West Papua and other countries impacted by wars that Boeing profits from. This is reflective of Illinois’ extensive history of funding billion dollar corporations and militarization rather than investing in building safe communities. The resources Illinois has committed to Boeing should be reallocated to fund life-affirming services – education, housing, healthcare, pandemic relief, small business grants, clean energy jobs, restorative justice programs, and so on.

Our demands for an immediate end to Illinois tax credits to war profiteers like Boeing are part of a broader movement to divest from the war industry. The state of Illinois and its elected officials have a social responsibility to immediately end the relationship with a company profiting from genocide and ethnic cleansing. Illinois is complicit in the violence that Boeing profits from and should cut all its ties as one local step toward an end to weapons manufacturing and war profiteering globally. Join us in calling on the State of Illinois to immediately end its relationship with Boeing by signing here.