President Trump has pleaded with Japan to build its vehicles in the United States, perhaps unaware that the country’s leading carmakers already build millions of cars in the U.S.
During his ongoing tour through Asia, Trump suggested that Japan has an unfair advantage on trade with the U.S., citing the lack of American cars sold in Japan, Bloomberg reports.
“Try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over. That’s not too much to ask. Is that rude to ask?” he said.
In typical fashion, pundits around the world moved to demonstrate just how many Japanese vehicles are already produced in the U.S., seemingly without the President’s knowledge.
In 2016, Japanese carmakers manufactured almost 4 million vehicles in the U.S. and an additional 4.7 million engines. What’s more, car brands from the Land of the Rising Sun employ around 850,000 U.S. workers and last year, 412,281 cars and trucks from Japanese-branded auto plants were exported from the U.S. last year.
As Jalopnik notes, one only has to look at the extensive list of factories which Japanese automakers currently have in the U.S. to know that they take international production seriously. In fact, Toyota has production facilities in six U.S. states, Honda in four, Nissan in Tennessee and Alabama, Subaru in Indiana and soon, Mazda will have a local manufacturing plant with Toyota.
Trump to Japanese automakers: "Try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over. That’s not too much to ask" pic.twitter.com/ndpcKAsHcx
— David Shepardson (@davidshepardson) November 6, 2017
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