Trump Tells Manufacturers He'll Cut Regulations and Taxes, Renegotiate NAFTA
Ten high-profile manufacturing executives, including Ford CEO Mark Fields and Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk, visited the White House today, where they were informed by President Donald Trump today that he would dramatically reduce corporate taxation and scale down regulations by as much as seventy-five percent.
Trump promised the return of manufacturing plants and jobs within the United States during his campaign. Making it more appetizing for specific companies to do so is an essential aspect of that plan, however, the new President also issued the caveat that companies choosing to invest outside of American soil would have to pay for it.
“We are going to be imposing a very major border tax on the product when it comes in,” Trump said. “A company that wants to fire all of its people in the United States, and build some factory someplace else, and then thinks that that product is going to just flow across the border into the United States, that’s not going to happen.”
He also said the the companies that operate within the U.S. would enjoy a corporate tax rate of 15 to 20 percent — down from the current statutory thirty-five percent, pending Congressional approval. However, the President claimed that numerous business leaders have explained to him that governmental regulations were a much larger source of concern.
“We’re going to be cutting regulation massively,” Trump told reporters from the White House’s Roosevelt Room. “When you want to expand your plant, or when Mark [Fields] wants to come in and build a big massive plant, or when Dell wants to come in and do something monstrous and special, you’re going to have your approvals really fast.”
Democrats and environmental groups have voiced concern over Trump’s plans to demolish the Obama administration green initiatives — threatening to cripple the EPA, abandon the Paris climate accords, and shy away from other regulatory pledges.
The President is also expected to sign an executive order today stating his intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Earlier today, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership — a trade agreement linking 12 countries in the Pacific Rim. He will immediately begin individual trade negotiations with the member countries.
Ann Arbor’s Center for Automotive Research said in a statement from earlier this month that pulling out of NAFTA could undo automotive jobs created since the end of the Great Recession. “Counter to the incoming Trump administration’s goal of creating manufacturing jobs, the withdrawal from NAFTA or the implementation of punitive tariffs could result in the loss of 31,000 U.S. jobs,” the research firm claimed.
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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People question what everyone was marching about over the weekend, and here is proof it has already started. "Trump orders broad hiring freeze" is the headline across the all the major papers today. I mean, first of all, they are women. We don't need to call them names from the 1950's. Second of all, this is exactly the kind of discrimination the federal government is supposed to protect us from, and here it is promoting it. Just wrong. All kinds of wrong.
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