Trump threatens GM after his trade war helped kill 14,000 jobs
Trump’s tariffs have helped push GM to lay off thousands of workers. Now Trump is attacking the company and hurting its stock price.
Trump took to Twitter to attack General Motors (GM) a day after the company announced that it will be cutting thousands of jobs amid Trump’s disastrous trade war.
GM has announced that about 14,000 factory and white-collar workers in North America are slated to be laid off, and that the company may close five plants. The company also said it would phase out production of the gas-electric hybrid Chevrolet Volt.
The Associated Press reported that the move is part of larger restructuring “as GM prepares for the next economic downturn, shifting trade agreements under the Trump administration, and potential tariffs on imported automobiles.”
The tariffs Trump has imposed on imported steel have reportedly cost GM $1 billion, just one example of major financial losses in multiple industries caused by Trump’s poorly thought out fiscal and trade policies.
One of the plants that might close is in Warren, Michigan, the site of a Trump rally in 2016. At that event Trump promised supporters that if he won the election, “you won’t lose one plant.”
But rather than reconsider his bad decisions or apologize for his broken promises, Trump attacked GM on Twitter.
“Very disappointed with General Motors and their CEO, Mary Barra, for closing plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland,” Trump wrote.
Then he threatened, “We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including or electric cars.”
Shares in GM dropped on the stock market following Trump’s tirade.
Ironically, Trump also wrote as part of his attack, “The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get!”
But the rescue of GM was engineered under President Barack Obama and was widely criticized by Republicans at the time. Failed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney infamously wrote an op-ed arguing that the U.S. should “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
Trump himself also criticized “Obama’s auto bailout,” as he put it in a 2012 tweet that claimed the bailout was “creating jobs in China” and “ruining American industry.”
But with his attacks on a major American business and his reckless trade policies, it looks like Trump is the one trying to ruin American industry.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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