wholookshere
Airbus already has an A320 plant in Alabama. https://us.airbus.com/en/airbus-us-locations#:~:text=The Airbus U.S. Manufacturing Facility,aircraft%2C producing 60 aircraft annually
That plant is why airbus was brought in on the Bombardier deal. It was originally to make the C220 in that plant to get around import tariffs.
So this was before airbus bought it from Bombarider.
The original deal was a 51% stake in the company with the option to buy the rest within a few years. This was in exchange for building the C series as it was called inside their US facilities. Since it would be American built, there’d be no import tariff.
Then when the deal settled, airbus very quickly chose to purchase the entire program from Bombardier. That’s the deal we know to get the A220.