President Trump Says GM Won’t Be Treated Well After Restructuring Announcement

President Trump reiterated his frustration with the largest U.S. automaker, General Motors, in a new interview with Fox News.

According to the Detroit News, which reported on the televised interview, the president said GM “is not going to be treated well” after the company announced a restructuring effort that could affect thousands of production employees in Michigan, Ohio, and Maryland.

“I don’t like what she did, it was nasty,” President Trump said of GM CEO Mary Barra. He added the timing of the announcement before Christmas was akin to pouring salt in a wound.

Barra met with lawmakers from Ohio and Michigan a couple of weeks ago to explain the company’s decision. She said she would keep an open mind about plant closures, but the automaker hasn’t signaled any willingness to allocate new vehicles for the plants targeted for shutdown. Lordstown in Ohio and Detroit-Hamtramck in Michigan are the two car production plants GM plans to idle next year.

The automaker has gone out of its way to highlight the fact it still needs 2,700 workers at other plants across the U.S., which provides transfer opportunities for those affected by the idled plants. However, UAW leadership has already said that’s not entirely feasible for every employee and GM can’t relocate every single worker.

The president has said he seeks to end any subsidies for GM, including its federal electric-car tax credit. However, GM will soon lose the credit regardless once it sells 200,000 qualifying vehicles. The automaker has said in the past it will reach the ceiling by the end of this year or in early 2019. GM sells the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Chevrolet Volt; both qualify for a full $7,500 federal tax credit, but the Volt will exit production by mid-2019.

The Chevrolet Impala, Cruze, Buick LaCrosse, and Cadillac CT6 will all also exit production around the same time.