President Donald Trump’s plan to impose widespread Definitions Foreign goods aim to persuade foreign manufacturers to produce their goods in factories in the United States and employ Americans.
During a recent interview with Network NewsMax, Trump said this effort had already achieved results.
“We have car plants that are built on levels that we have never seen anything like that, and they rise quickly,” Trump said on March 26.
In response to the request of evidence, the White House cited ads for the recent expansion plan from Hyundai, Stellantis and Honda.
However, auto experts say Trump is exaggerated. In most cases, these ads represent investments in current facilities, not the newly built factories. They may be or do not fruit.
Dimiri Anastakis, a professor of business history at the University of Toronto and author of the 2024 book for the automotive industry in North America, said since it was too early for the president to get the credit for expanding the factory in view of a short time in his position. He said: “It is planned for plants years ago.”
We did not find any data to confirm that the modern ads series reaches the level of determining a record for investment of car manufacturing.
Which car makers have announced new investments recently?
Three foreign car makers recently said they will invest large sums in US production.
Hyundai: In February, the South Korean auto company announced that it would increase its production capacity in Metapant in Georgia from 300,000 to 500,000 cars annually, and produce both electric and hybrid cars. It also announced that it would increase production by an unspecified amount in its factory in Alabama, which currently produces 356,100 cars per year.
In March, Hyundai announced at an event at the White House that it had started an investment of about $ 21 billion in the United States, including the 5.8 billion dollar steel factory in Louisiana to provide materials for electric cars to the company.
Jose Monoz, CEO of Hyundai Motor Co, told Axios that the “best way” for the company “to move in customs tariffs is to increase localization.”
Honda: In March, Reuters reported, based on unveiled sources, that the Japanese car maker will make its civilian hybrid car in Indiana instead of Mexico.
Honda had initially planned to manufacture the next generation of CIVIC in Guanajuato, Mexico, starting in November 2027. But it is now planning to build the new CIVIC in a factory in Greensburg, Indiana, starting in May 2028, with an expected annual production of 210,000, according to Rioters.
Stelant: In late January, the Dutch company, which owns Chrysler, a pocket, and other car marks, announced that it will invest $ 5 billion in the United States, including the reopening of the assembly factory in Balfider, Illinois, which was once produced Jeep Sherox and has been closed since February 2023. The company is now plans to make medium -sized trucks there in 2027.
Why do experts say that caution is justified
A closer look at the three companies’ ads highlights differences with Trump’s framing.
First, they are ads about plans that are determined several years from now, which means that companies can adjust the plans before they are fruitful.
Second, none of the movements include “car factories that are built”, as Trump said, but increasing production in current plants or reopening a closed factory. The Louisiana Steel Factory will provide Hyundai’s planning for EVS.
Greg Mouro, a professor of manufacturing policy at McMaster University, said that companies such as Hyundai, Honda and Stelantis are preparing to accelerate launchs already to adapt to political facts.
“They will look at the models that will reach the end of their natural cycle, which is happening in five periods or so, and they are preparing to announce” investments “to continue the new version of the model in those plants.” “These releases can be” winning “by Trump.
The investment in the manufacture of cars was high before Trump
We have not found any long -term data to put the last three car maker ads in a historical context, but the past few years have seen something of the Renaissance in investing the manufacture of new cars, and many of them in electric cars.
From 2000 to the end of September 2024, companies announced $ 20.8 billion of investments in the manufacture of EV and the establishment of about 240,000 jobs, according to public policy in Atlas, a research and consultant company in Washington, DC.
Experts said that there is a major factor in this development, which are laws signed by President Joe Biden, Party infrastructure law and Law of reducing inflationWhich provided federal incentives to double the American industrial base.
Of the $ 208.8 billion of Atlas’s investments, more than half has been announced since Biden signed the law to reduce inflation in 2022.
“It is clear that this is part of a multi -year -old -year -old direction,” said the founder of the Atlas Nick Nigro.
Other types of industrialization have also seen a distinguished rise since the approval of these laws; According to the Treasury, the total construction spending on manufacturing, amended inflation, has doubled since the end of 2021.
The White House reduced the value of the Biden era investments, pointing to the analysis of the Venanchel Times times that found approximately 40 percent of the investments funded since the law to reduce inflation and another Biden -signed bill, the chips and science law, was stopped or delayed, as a total of $ 84 billion.
The White House also referred to news reports on cars manufacturers that gave up EV goals in 2024, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes Benz.
However, the same uncertainty that some planned investments have been afflicted may also affect the ads made in recent weeks. It can take to build a factory, or even increase production in one of the current things, years, and it remains to see whether these plans will be achieved.
https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/ap-1031226486_368165-1743578301.jpg?resize=1920%2C1440
Source link