'Toyota should pay big border tax to export its cars,' says Trump

'Toyota should pay big border tax to export its cars,' says Trump. January. 07, 2017 07:04. by Hyong-gwon Pu, Dong-Il Seo bookum90@donga.com,dong@donga.com.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s tweet targeting large companies has changed its target and took aim at a foreign company. To keep manufacturing jobs in the U..S has been a political cause of Trump.

On Friday, Trump tweeted the following: “Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax.” Trump has sent similar warnings to companies such as air conditioning equipment manufacturer Carrier, GM and Ford and they were planning to move their manufacturing bases within the U.S. or to newly establish plants to Mexico. It was the first time that Trump targeted a foreign company with the same reason.

The Wall Street Journal reported that his tweet came after hours when Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda told Japanese reporters that the company will push forward with its plan to build a car plant in Mexica as scheduled at a New Year’s gathering of motor companies. Toyota announced in April last year that the auto company will build a new facility in Guanajuato that will make Corolla vehicles from 2019 and the company expects that it will create about 2,000 jobs in Mexico.

Trump’s threats have caused stock prices of Toyota and other automobile related companies to plummet in New York and Tokyo. Toyota issued a statement to calm down his warning and pointed out that the company has 10 manufacturing plants and employs a total of 136,000 (American) workers. The company also said that production volume or employment in the U.S. will not decrease as a result of its new plant in Mexico and it looks forward to collaborating with the Trump Administration.

“All car companies of the U.S., Japan, Germany and South Korea have their compact car plants in Mexico due to low wages," the Wall Street Journal said. "Thanks to this, American consumers can afford to buy compact cars at a reasonable price. Trump is shaking up this production-sales structure.”