Weeks after General Motors CEO Mary Barra declared U.S. trade uncertainty will “eventually” affect the automaker, GM North America President Alan Batey opened up on the automaker’s thoughts over current situations with the North American Free Trade Agreement and China.
On NAFTA, Batey told Automotive News in an interview published Monday that “there’s lots of uncertainty.” He called the automaker’s supply chain like a “Rubik’s Cube” and said anytime the company hears something, GM evaluates the effects and reports back to the Trump administration to explain its findings.
Batey doubled down on GM’s stance that the automaker is in favor of a modernized NAFTA agreement that is “good for North America.”
“An exit from NAFTA, we don’t think is going to be good for the U.S. It’s not going to be good for the industry,” he said.
On China, the executive noted the country is more important than ever. China is the world’s largest auto market, while the U.S. is number two. Batey said GM hopes both countries can reach a position that’s beneficial to the U.S. and China. New tariffs imposed on China will affect the Buick Envision, which is imported from China. The 25 percent tariff could raise the crossover’s price by $8,000.
He admitted some decisions are simply out of GM’s hands and said, “We’re focused on what we can control and running the business on a proactive basis.”
Comments
“Modernized NAFTA” is exactly what President Trump has been trying to achieve…Means Canada and Mexico cant put up trade barriers and impose taxes/ tariffs on American imports under the “free trade” agreement. Free trade means exactly that, FREE TRADE.
Just like today’s tweets from President Trump on Harley-Davidson, our President is standing by American workers. Thank God we finally have a President that stands up for Americans.
What Sean has still not reported on this site is that a few weeks ago the largest province in Canada, Ontario, and home to the majority of auto and auto parts manufacturing in the country, REJECTED the left-wing protectionist Liberal government and voted in a PRO-TRUMP, populist Conservative government in a landslide. The Liberals, party of Prime Minister Trudeau whose poll numbers have collapsed, lost their official party status because they received such low support. Obviously they arent so against President Trump as the media liars would try to make you believe.
Dont believe the left-wing sore loser media lies and propaganda.
Under the misleading promise “NoMorePropaganda”, the person behind that pseudo makes nothing but political propaganda.
more canadian parliamentary news please. who is going to win the election in saskatoon?
will the beaver unionist conservative progressive party finally beat the moose tory whig cumberbatches this fall?
thanks in advance.
“The Liberals, party of Prime Minister Trudeau whose poll numbers have collapsed, lost their official party status because they received such low support.”
Alright, one last time because you keep getting it wrong…
You’ve proven, yet again, that you don’t know jack about Canadian politics, and that you STILL don’t know the difference between provincial and federal politics.
The Ontario provincial liberal party has lost official party status, but they still are obligated to represent their constitutes who elected them. Losing official party status may sound disastrous to you (you’re making it sound worse than it actually is), but apart from funding restrictions and no being able to ask questions during question period, the liberal party of Ontario still exists.
The Federal liberal party (the one that Trudeau heads) has a majority government, and has had that majority since 2015. The official opposition (the Tories), have fewer seats in Parliament, but that doesn’t mean they’ve lost official party status either.
It would pay you do even a little bit of reading about how the multi-party political system in Canada even works before you open that fat hole in your face and reveal to us all that you think of Canadian politics is identical to American politics.
If you still can’t get understand this critically important difference and why it doesn’t work for your argument, then you suck.
Mr. Trump claims that his trade war aims would benefit US companies and their dependents, forcing them to relocate production in areas not affected by his trade war.
Now he has achieved the first visible success, and he complains!
Harley-Davidson announced the relocation of a part of their production to areas not affected by the Trump Trade War, so that their sales in Europe would not be affected.
Thinking people have long stated that Mr. Trump gets the opposite of what he claims to aim for.
While GM continues to move production to Mexico (Terrain & Blazer) after we bailed them out. Baty is just saying blah blah blah same take jobs somewhere else
Would you prefer to bail GM out again because it made decisions that were not profitable for the company? You can only play the bailout card do so long, and that was when the government had a stake. The government decided to bail them out, then decided to sell its stake… and that’s that.
Harley-Davidson has managed to profit from the big revival of motor-cycles in the past decades and in their case on the mythical aura built by Hollywood movies like “Easy Rider” more as a cult than efficient driving machines to get from A to B.
Harley-Davidson increased their sales in Europe from 4000 per year to more than 40.000.
As part of their world wide strategy, HD disposes of assembly plants in the USA, Brasil, India, Australia and Thailand, according to what I saw yesterday on CNN.
“modernized NAFTA agreement” doesn’t say anything concrete.
Why cant GM cover the cost of the increase and not pass that off to the customer!
8k is not going to stop me from buying a car but unfortunately some people are cheap and will complain about it. So in order to keep customers happy keep the price close to the same and absorb the extra cost.
“8k is not going to stop me from buying a car but unfortunately some people are cheap and will complain about it. So in order to keep customers happy keep the price close to the same and absorb the extra cost.”
$8000 can easily swing a buyer from one automaker to another, especially for mass-market cars like the Equinox or Traverse. Having GM ‘absorb’ the cost as a way to put the sticker price even lower would mean even weaker revenue and lower transaction prices.
What you’re suggesting for GM is suicidal.
$8000 Plus is the very reason we can’t exports vehicles from America to Europe, Japan, S Korea and China sand many other countries. This is what the President is trying to fix. If you don’t want to pay extra buy what is build here, plain and simple. Ford and GM got kick out of Japan in 1938. GM tried to export Chev’s from S Korea to Europe it didn’t work. Between Europe import taxes and a consumer that protects their companies.
Nope. I point to the Mustang as a clear and definite example of a successful American export. The quality is better, the pricing is inline with consumer expectations, and for what it offers nobody is complaining.
It’s what happens when you put quality ahead of quantity.
“If you don’t want to pay extra buy what is build here, plain and simple.”
And if whats on offer is inferior or has terrible residuals (like all of FCA), then what? The consumer is screwed with a car that is worth nothing after 3 years, and junky cars like the Journey and V6 Chargers will flood the roads.
Rather than relying on Washington to put tariffs on imported car to keep them out of the market, why can’t Detroit step up and make that $150,000 Cadillac? Why take the cheap and plentiful route just to safe a save a few thousand dollars?
This is the exact same crap Detroit pulled in the 1970’s and they’ve never been able to live it down in the consumer’s mind. They took the cheap route, the Germans and the Japanese spent more on engineering, and now GM can blame no one else but past management as they look at a 17% market share.
Quality has always been more important that a low price, especially for something as expensive as a car.
Wrong.
After having fought her place as a major power in Europe after the 1st World War, the US automobile industry preferred to build of buy factories in other countries instead of exporting. Let the others work for us! We relax and consume what the world makes for us!
GM bought the British Vauxhall in 1926, the German Opel in 1929-31. Ford decided to build their own factory in Cologne.
After the 2nd World War, the US automobile industry indulged in building those huge gas guzzling barges with their wobbly suspension, which were fit for the middle class living in suburbia with those wide streets which have no walk way, but not for the centuries old cites on other continents. The population density of the USA is very low. I was once in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was amazed by the wide wide streets in that city. They had been designed so that a six spanned horse carriage could make a u-turn on the streets.
The USA lived at the expense of the world wide empire which they had conquered.
But history does not stop. What comes up, will go down. The only constant in history is the permanent change. There is no way the US rulers can stop the decline of their empire (which began at least with the Korea War, the first one, the US did not win), but Trump’s agressiveness may lead to the annihilation of mankind and any organic life on this planet.
Job losses for all with Trump tariffs. First the new Blazer and next Harley. I see a pattern.
Why not just make the Buick Invision in the U S ??
Funny, everytime I up – or downvote pro Trump, there is an automatic opposite vote? Is the Fake News present?
Build the Envision here!
Trump just told the public that it is bad for a company trying to avoid import duties based on country of origin by relocating the production.
OTOH, automobile manufacturers in the USA might be induced to move their production to other country because of the artificially high prices for steel in the USA.
Also Mercedes warned that their production in the USA would be adversly affected by the rataliatory import duties levied by China on imports from the USA.
good —they can attack this situation by making all American autos in the USA by American workers hands — make the American workers proud ..