US media overnight reported General Motors will today announce around US$1bn in factory investment and job retention plans but the plans have long been in the works, would have been announced regardless of political pressure and come after several thousand jobs were axed recently.
A source told Reuters the automaker was making the decision for business and not political reasons. The investment would help create or retain more than 1,000 jobs and there will be other efforts to boost US employment, including adding engineers.
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According to Reuters, GM general counsel Craig Glidden told the Wall Street Journal, which reported the company’s plans late on Monday, any investment the company might disclose had been long planned and was not a response to Trump’s criticism.
GM declined comment on the investment to Reuters and there was no heralding of any announcement on GM’s media website in the early hours of Tuesday.
Reports noted GM has come under heavy criticism from Trump for building vehicles in Mexico, as have other automakers. On 3 January, Trump threatened to impose a “big border tax” on GM for making hatchback versions of its Chevrolet Cruze compact cars in Mexico; sedans are made in the US.
At a news conference last week, Trump cited recent US investments by other automakers and said “General Motors will be following, and I think they will be”.
Trump, whose trade plan has been condemned by Bloomberg’s editorial board as “a looming disaster”, has said he would impose a border tax of 35 percent on German cars imported to the US market. Earlier this month he criticised Toyota’s plans to move production of the Corolla to Mexico from Canada.
GM’s “general plan is to build where we sell and we’re focused on what we’re doing in the United States,” Chief Executive Mary Barra said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of an event in Washington on Monday. “We’re a global company so we’re going to continue that focus.”
Barra, who told Reuters she planned to attend Trump’s inauguration on Friday, said GM wants to work with him. “I do believe we have more in common than we have areas that we aren’t aligned.”
Reuters noted GM, which has more than 40 manufacturing sites in the US, last year announced $2.9bn in US investments but recently announced plans to lay off about 3,300 employees at three factories.
A Bloomberg source said the investment announcement, which is being accelerated amid pressure from the president-elect, is related to building products that were in the works and approved before Trump won the election in November.
“This is the normal course of business,” Maryann Keller, an independent auto industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut, told Bloomberg. “All they’re doing is announcing investments that they would have made anyway.”
