No one can say that The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) doesn’t know how to play hardball. Former CEO and current chairman James McNerney said in Washington on Tuesday night that the company is considering moving some parts of its operations to countries that offer export credits.

Is this just saber-rattling or is there a real possibility that Boeing would move some work offshore? If the company’s history with the state of Washington is any guide, lawmakers and workers had better pay attention.

In 2014 the state of Washington had 93,400 aerospace jobs and the aerospace industry supported 267,000 direct and indirect jobs that paid $22 billion in wages. The total could have been higher, but Boeing, the state’s largest private employer, had moved about 7,000 jobs out of Washington since the company received a late-2013 tax break and incentive deal from the state worth $8.7 billion to build its 777X assembly line wing plant in Washington. The deal did not include a requirement that Boeing guarantee that jobs would stay in the state.

And that’s not the first sweet deal that Boeing had received from the state of Washington that does not include job guarantees. A deal in 2003 worth $3.24 billion to Boeing also failed to insist that Boeing keep the jobs in the state. What should have been a wake-up call for the state came in 2009, when Boeing accepted a $900 million deal to open its second assembly line for the 787 in South Carolina.

When the U.S. Congress failed to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank by the June deadline, Boeing and other exporters predicted doom and gloom for U.S. exports. According to a report at Reuters:

Uncertainty about the availability of export credits is already making companies skittish about buying a range of Boeing products, including commercial satellites, according to sources familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the business negotiations.

Boeing already outsources many components of its plane. The company did sign a contract with five key Japanese suppliers in June of last year to provide 21% of the parts for the 777X. That total represents a cutback from the 35% of parts Japanese suppliers provide for the 787. The company ran into plenty of difficulty with its global supply chain before it finally got the 787 into production.

Boeing apparently is not afraid to play with fire again. And there’s every reason to believe that the company could get burned again.

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