Raytheon's CEO Disagrees With Trump's Concern About United Technologies Merger

(RTTNews) - Raytheon's Chief Executive John Harris reportedly disagrees with US President Donald Trump's concern that United Technologies-Raytheon deal could affect competition.

Aerospace company United Technologies Corp. (UTX) and defense contractor Raytheon Co. (RTN) last week announced deal to merge in an all-stock transaction. The combined entity, to be named Raytheon Technologies Corp., is expected to have about $74 billion in pro forma 2019 sales.

However, in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box, Trump said the merger would create an aerospace and defense giant that would kill competition.

"I'm a little concerned about United Technologies and Raytheon, because one of the things that I bring up all the time is we used to have many plane companies, but they have all merged. Now we have very few, we have the two main ones-- Lockheed and Boeing. " Trump said during the phone interview.

He said he understood that there is some overlap between the companies' products. "I just want to see competition. They're two great companies, I love them both. But I want to see that we don't hurt our competition," Trump said.

When Harris was asked about Trump's concern, he responded, "So, it's actually quite the opposite."

"The combination has little to no overlap, less than 1% of what we would offer as a combined company," Harris told CNBC's Phil LeBeau at the Paris Air Show.