Trump to GM: "Close a plant in China or Mexico!"

Published Mar 18, 2019 • 1 minute read

U.S. President Donald Trump talks with reporters outside the White House before traveling to Alabama to visit areas affected by the deadly tornadoes, Friday, March 8, 2019, in Washington. Photo by Evan Vucci /AP Photo

President Donald Trump took to Twitter to apply pressure on General Motors to reopen its manufacturing plant in Ohio.

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Over the weekend, he tweeted he had a conversation with GM CEO Mary Barra about the fate of the Lordstown, Ohio, plant.

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“I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our country is BOOMING,” he tweeted.

“I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union — I don’t care, I just want it open!”

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The American president complained in another tweet Monday that GM and the United Auto Workers weren’t going to start talks until the fall.

“Why wait, start them now!” he tweeted. “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! … Get that big, beautiful plant in Ohio open now.”

Trump went even further Monday in another tweet suggesting another country, not his, should be faced with a shuttered GM plant: “Close a plant in China or Mexico, where you invested so heavily pre-Trump, but not in the U.S.A. Bring jobs home!”

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Not surprisingly, Trump travels to Ohio this week.

A General Motors statement issued Sunday said that the fate of those plants set to be closed “will be resolved between GM and the UAW.”

The automaker insisted they had “opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees.”

In Ontario, GM is scheduled to shut down its Oshawa plant at the end of this year. Pop star Sting — in Toronto starring in his musical The Last Ship — recently lent his famous face to efforts by Unifor, the union which represents the plant’s workers, to keep the Oshawa operation going.

The Oshawa closure will affect 2,500 unionized jobs and 300 managers.

— With files from AP

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