Trump’s Bullish Message To U.S. Automakers Puts CARZ ETF In Focus

Trump reportedly will meet soon the Canadian and Mexican leadership to discuss the 12-year-old agreement.

Trump urged the auto manufacturers to build more in the U.S. – pledging to make it easier for them. According to the WSJ, auto companies are now taking a look at their USA factory workforces, monitoring Trump’s twitter account, and are in ongoing discussions with the White House. “It’s happening. It’s happening big league”. They’re going to have a tax to pay; a border tax.

The President has shown extra-ordinary interest and has intervened in corporate affairs in uncommon manners ever since he took the control of the helm, and this soon-to-be interaction with the CEOs of the afore-mentioned automakers is the latest sign.

The CEOs stayed at the meeting about an hour.

FedEx Corp FDX.N CEO Fred Smith says Trump should reconsider his positions on worldwide trade and work to embrace China and its vast market.

Whether it was an oversight or strategy to only invite the Detroit Three CEOs most closely identified with “Buy American” ideals, Harbour says Trump ought to take a more comprehensive approach to promoting the USA auto industry.

In the lead up to his inauguration, Trump named and shamed auto companies for manufacturing vehicles in Mexico that are sold in the USA, including GM, and threatened them with a ‘big border tax’.

“We are talking to dozens of our clients about the new reality the [president] has created”, said David Marin, the managing principal of Podesta Group’s public relations shop. In attendance were Ford CEO Mark Fields, GM CEO Mary Barra and FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne.

The auto executives on Tuesday raised the issue of the fuel efficiency rules, trade policy and other regulatory matters. Ford had emphasized that the move would not affect U.S.jobs because the automaker would be putting new vehicles into the MI plants.

Trump met the chief executives of Ford, Dow Chemical and other major USA corporations at the White House on Monday. The newly elected president vowed reduced production regulations and more incentives for the Detroit Big Three if they choose to invest more in their home market. Absent from the table were any representatives of Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai – Asian automakers that employ tens of thousands of American workers in USA cities like Marysville, Ohio, and Canton, Miss. “All Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the USA are built in GM’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio”. BMW meanwhile builds the all X3, X4, X5 and X6 models in their SC plant.

It is as if President Trump was channeling a 1975 version of the auto industry. GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and foreign automakers have announced new U.S.jobs and investments in recent weeks. Fields also went to Trump’s meeting Monday with USA manufacturers like Tesla Motors (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.

Each Detroit automaker says it has added at least 25,000 U.S.jobs since 2009, increasing their employment in the country by about 50% or more.

And the three Detroit automakers have announced additional USA hiring and investment plans since President Trump’s election, but they have insisted the decisions were made independently of him. Numerous plans were promised in 2015 labor deals with the United Auto Workers union.

Trump has made auto jobs a key part of his presidency after excoriating automakers like Ford and General Motors for building factories outside the country to save money.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who met with Trump on Monday, is building a massive battery plant, called the Gigafactory, in Sparks, Nevada, that is expected to employ 6,500 people when it is completed in 2020.