Barely three weeks before about 1,250 General Motors workers are scheduled to lose their jobs at an Ohio plant that builds the Chevrolet Cruze, President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday fired off an angry tweet at General Motors.
General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
“General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A. or pay big border tax!” Trump tweeted.
GM, not to be outdone soon fired back with a statement.
“General Motors manufactures the Chevrolet Cruze sedan in Lordstown, Ohio. All Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.S. are built in GM’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. GM builds the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback for global markets in Mexico, with a small number sold in the U.S,” the company said in a statement.
The company’s statement did not mention that as of Jan. 23, about 1,250 employees of the Lordstown plant will lose their jobs.
On Nov. 9, one day after the presidential election, GM announced it was laying off 2,000 employees effective in January. About 750 workers in Lansing, Mich., are also losing their jobs.
“There are people who have never known any other way of life except to go to General Motors and work every day. Needless to say, today has been a very difficult day,” said Glenn Johnson, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, when the cutbacks were announced.
GM spokesman Tom Wickham has said that the automaker waited until after the election to announce the layoffs to avoid any accusation of trying to affect the voting.
“There is no connection between the two issues,” he said. “Lordstown production adjustment is being made based on the softening car market and outlook for 2017.”
Cruze sales are down nearly 20 percent in the U.S. largely because GM reduced less profitable sales to rental car companies, Wickham said.
GM said it sold about 190,000 Cruzes in the U.S. in 2016. About 4,500 of those, or 2.4 percent, were hatchbacks made in Mexico.
Trump ran on a platform of attracting jobs back to America, and said he would enact punitive tariffs on automakers that moved jobs to Mexico.
In November, Ford announced it would continue making Lincolns at a Kentucky plant instead of moving the work to Mexico as it had planned.
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