Trump says GM should stop production in China in the restructuring



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PALO ALTO, USA – US President Donald Trump has expressed his deep dissatisfaction with General Motors after the automaker announced a restructuring plan on Monday to cut jobs and production in northern factories -américaines.

Trump also said that GM should stop car production in China instead of reducing it in North America.

GM announced Monday that it would reduce its global workforce by 15% and stop affecting the production of new models at five plants in North America, reducing costs associated with bids running at the same time. conventional gasoline and diverting resources to new technologies such as automated vehicles and electricity. .

The US automaker began offering buyouts to about 18,000 North American workers by the end of October. According to the announcement made Monday, it will stop allocating new products to the assembly plants of Canada, Detroit and Ohio, as well as to two "propulsion plants" in 2019. He did not specify when the facilities will be decommissioned.

Two other plants outside North America will also cease operations by the end of next year, in addition to the Gunsan plant in South Korea, whose closure had been announced previously.

"We do not like that," Trump told reporters on Monday before leaving the White House in a helicopter.

"I was very tough" during a conversation with Mary Barra, GM CEO, Sunday night, he said.

Worker on the Baojun E200 electric vehicle assembly line at a SAIC-GM-Wuling plant, a joint venture of SAIC Motor, General Motors and Liuzhou Wuling Motors.

© Reuters

"I spoke with her when I heard that they were shutting down and I said:" You know, this country did a lot for General Motors, [which had] Better to come back quickly there – it's Ohio, "he said.

In another Wall Street Journal interview, Trump said GM should stop making cars in China and open a new plant in Ohio to replace facilities where the company plans to end its production.

GM, along with Volkswagen, is one of the largest players in the automotive industry in China, with production facilities in Shanghai, as well as in Liaoning and Shandong provinces.

"I have no doubt that in the not-too-distant future, they will put something else," Trump said on Monday as a result of GM's decision to let a plant idle in Lordstown, 39; Ohio.

"They'd better put something else," he told reporters.

In a speech delivered in 2017 in Youngstown, Ohio, near the GM plant in question, Trump had promised that the jobs would "all come back".

GM plans to streamline its operations, such as the costly development process for car platforms, and reduce the number of executives by 25%.

GM expects the costs associated with this restructuring to be $ 3 to $ 3.8 billion. The majority will be earmarked for the quarters from October to December 2018 and from January to March 2019. By reducing costs and curbing investments, the automaker is forecasting an improvement in its free cash flow of $ 6 billion annually. .

While reducing the human resources required for the production and development of gasoline cars, GM will double in two years the number of engineers who manage the technologies of electricity and self-driving. "It's about making sure GM is slim and agile" to take the lead in autonomous and electric vehicles, Barra told reporters on Monday.

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