Trump warns of heavy tax on Toyota

(Baonghean) - US President-elect Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that Toyota will be heavily taxed if the company assembles Corolla cars for the US market in Mexico.

Mr. Donald Trump shows his determination to tax car manufacturers assembled outside the US. Photo: Internet.

On his personal Twitter account, Mr. Trump wrote: “Toyota Corporation said it will build a new factory in Baja, Mexico, to produce Corolla cars for the United States. No way. Build in the United States or pay big taxes!”.

Not only Toyota received a warning from the US president-elect, a few days ago on his personal Twitter, Mr. Trump also threatened to impose a very heavy tax on Chevy Cruze cars imported to the US by General Motors, the number one US car manufacturer, produced in Mexico.

Currently, major automakers are under a lot of pressure from President-elect Trump, especially after another major automaker, Ford, "listened" to Mr. Trump and stopped the project to build a $1.6 billion factory in Mexico to focus on promoting domestic electric and self-driving cars.

As for Toyota, the car company immediately received bad news after Mr. Trump's announcement when Toyota's stock price dropped 3%, equivalent to a loss of more than 1.2 billion USD in just a blink of an eye. Although the stock price has recovered somewhat, the impact of Mr. Trump's announcement is huge.

In response to the threat from the US president-elect, Toyota quickly issued a statement reassuring and assuring that production in Guanajuato would not take away American jobs. The company's US branch issued a statement saying that production and employment at Toyota factories in the US would not decrease after the new factory in Mexico. The company has 10 factories in the US.

"Toyota looks forward to working with the new Trump administration to make every effort to serve the interests of consumers and the auto industry," said company spokesman Scott Vazin.

Since being elected President of the United States, Mr. Trump has taken a tough stance on Mexico. In his previous campaign platform, Mr. Trump announced that he would impose a tax of up to 35% on cars produced in Mexico and then imported into the United States to prevent car manufacturers from assembling cars at a lower cost than if they were produced in the United States. He named a number of car manufacturers that could be subject to high tariffs, including Ford, General Motors (GM), Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

Nhat Minh

(According to BBC)