Toyota Invests $391 Million in Texas as Trump, Abe Finalize Deal
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Toyota Motor Corp. will invest $391 million at its Texas truck plant to build next-generation pickups as part of a drive to boost output in the U.S. and ease trade tensions with the Trump administration.
The spending announced for the San Antonio factory comes six months after the automaker pledged to shell out an additional $3 billion on its U.S. operations by 2021, a move seen as an effort to head off threatened U.S. tariffs on vehicles imported from Japan. That was on top of an earlier $10 billion U.S. investment pledge Toyota made shortly before President Donald Trump took office.
“We view it as a tremendous vote of confidence in Texas and San Antonio and the truck market” in the U.S., Christopher Reynolds, the chief administrative officer and head of manufacturing for Toyota in North America, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
The spending is part of Toyota’s multidecade production-localization drive, but also reflects a strategy to convince Trump not to follow through on tariffs of as much as 25% on imported vehicles and parts. The Japanese carmaker has publicly pushed back on the administration’s claim that foreign automakers pose a national security risk to the U.S.
Toyota Tundra (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)
Following a monthslong probe, the administration in May cleared the way for tariffs on imported cars and components. But the White House has put off imposing them while it pursues trade deals with Japan and the European Union.
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President Trump on Sept. 16 said the U.S. will reach an initial trade deal with Japan in the coming weeks, but made no mention of his threat of duties on $50 billion worth of Japanese autos. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s camp has warned any final deal must include assurances that Washington won’t hit the country’s car sector with new duties.
Toyota denied the timing of the announcement is linked to the trade talks between the U.S. and Japan.
“We don’t make these investment decisions based on what the current trade scenario is,” Reynolds said. “When we make this kind of investment, we’re looking at where we think the market will be in 20 years from now, regardless of what the trade flows might be under this agreement or that agreement.”
‘Advanced Technologies’
No new direct jobs were announced for the factory in San Antonio, which currently employs more than 3,000 workers. Toyota said the funds will be used to incorporate “various advanced technologies” on the production lines for the Tacoma and Tundra.
In recent years, Toyota has had difficulty supplying dealers enough of the two trucks to meet demand. The company also makes the Tacoma at a plant in Tijuana, Mexico, and plans to build the model at another plant that’s under construction in Guanajuato.
The full-size Tundra is only made in San Antonio. Next year, it’s expected to undergo its first full model change since 2007. Future iterations of both trucks will share a chassis and other core components with the more limited volume Tundra, the trade publication Automotive News reported earlier this year.
The Tacoma has been the best-selling midsize truck in the U.S. for the past 14 years, but Toyota’s lock on the segment is being challenged by rivals. General Motors Co. launched a pair of midsize pickups in 2014, and Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV have debuted competing models this year.
