Trump Attacks General Motors for Laying Off Auto Workers |
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Topics: President Donald J. Trump, General Motors
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Ken Bredemeier, VOA News
18 March 2019 (10:37AM)
U.S. President Donald Trump is attacking General Motors, the country's biggest automaker, for costing 5,400 factory workers their jobs when it closed a manufacturing plant where it built a compact model car that Americans were increasingly not interested in buying.
Trump said on Twitter he talked with Mary Barra, GM's chief executive, on Sunday, telling her he was "not happy" that the automaker closed the manufacturing plant in the industrial heartland of the country in Lordstown, Ohio, where GM manufactured the Chevrolet Cruze, a smaller car the company says is still popular overseas but not in the U.S.
He said he was miffed that the Lordstown plant was closed earlier this month "when everything else in our Country is BOOMING. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly."
The plant closure was an indication that prosperity is uneven geographically across the U.S., the world's largest economy.
But with Trump facing several investigations surrounding his 2016 presidential campaign and his actions during the first 26 months of his presidency, he is counting on the country's mostly robust economy as a key talking point to voters that he should be re-elected to another four-year term in the November 2020 election.
He wrote on Twitter that he is not happy about the closure.
Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors about the Lordstown Ohio plant. I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union — I don’t care, I just want it open!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
General Motors and the UAW are going to start “talks” in September/October. Why wait, start them now! I want jobs to stay in the U.S.A. and want Lordstown (Ohio), in one of the best economies in our history, opened or sold to a company who will open it up fast! Car companies.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019
....are all coming back to the U.S. So is everyone else. We now have the best Economy in the World, the envy of all. Get that big, beautiful plant in Ohio open now. Close a plant in China or Mexico, where you invested so heavily pre-Trump, but not in the U.S.A. Bring jobs home!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019