Trump Muses About Raising Car Tax to 25% to Match Truck Tax
President Donald Trump, still upset about General Motors' plans to shutter assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio, and transmission plants in Michigan and Maryland, tweeted that if the tariff on cars matched the one on light trucks, "many more cars would be built here," and GM would not be closing the plants. "Get smart Congress," he tweeted on Nov. 28. "The President has great power on this issue - Because of the G.M. event, it is being studied now!"
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If the Section 232 tariffs were set at 25 percent, it would not have forced GM to build in Ohio and Michigan, because the other site that makes the product now built in Lordstown, Ohio, is in Mexico, and its production will not be subject to the tariffs. About 90 minutes later, Trump tweeted about a success he attributes to the Section 232 tariffs on steel. "Steel Dynamics announced that it will build a brand new 3 million ton steel mill in the Southwest that will create 600 good-paying U.S. JOBS. Steel JOBS are coming back to America, just like I predicted." The job cuts from the GM closures -- including an assembly plant in Ontario, Canada -- are estimated at 14,000.