How Trumpism is helping the forgotten man - aka Archie Bunker - defeat globalization and bring back the good old days

Trump says he isn't happy with General Motors' decision to shed 14,700 jobs

General Motors has announced it will halt production at five North American facilities and cut 14,700 jobs as it deals with slowing sedan sales and the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

More than 6,000 blue-collar jobs will be hit by GM plans to stop production at a car plant in Canada and two more in Ohio and Michigan. 

Two transmission plants in the US will also be mothballed, putting the future of those plants in doubt.

The cuts will also include 15% of GM’s 54,000 white-collar workforce, about 8,100 people, and come as 18,000 GM workers have been asked to accept voluntary redundancy.

Trump, who won over voters in many of the states affected by GM’s decision by promising to save their jobs, told reporters he was not happy with the decision. 

“We don’t like it,” he told reporters. 

“This country has done a lot for General Motors. They better get back to Ohio, and soon.”

Or else what, one has to wonder?

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Cost pressures on GM and other car companies and suppliers have increased as demand has waned for traditional sedans. 

The company has also said tariffs on imported steel, imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration, have cost it $1bn.

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GM has internally debated for months how to address shrinking car demand, a person briefed on the matter said, and the issue is certain to re-emerge when GM holds contract talks next year with the UAW.

The company has begun what is expected to be a long and expensive transition to a new transportation model that embraces electrified and automated vehicles, many of which will be shared rather than owned. 

GM signaled the latest belt-tightening in late October when it offered buyouts to 50,000 salaried employees in North America.

Lagging US car sales has seen several car plants fall to just one shift, including its Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant and Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant.

Rivals Ford and Fiat Chrysler have curtailed US car production. 

Ford said in April it planned to stop building nearly all cars in North America.

'A kick in the stomach'

In a speech in nearby Youngstown in July 2017, Trump promised to bring back auto jobs. 

“They’re all coming back,” he said. 

“Don’t move, don’t sell your house.” 

Trump has criticized GM about layoffs, but the Lordstown workers say he hasn’t done enough.

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The workers are also angry that GM, helped by the $1tn corporate tax [cut] enacted last year, has spent nearly $14bn on stock buybacks since 2015, money that could have been invested in developing next-generation vehicles.

And then there is the indirect protectionism of politicians representing affected areas, abundantly willing to shove the extra costs of cars made by the Americans on whom their jobs depend onto the backs of other Americans on whom their jobs do not depend.

There’s a bipartisan push to save the plant. 

Governor John Kasich, a Republican, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, have pressed GM’s chief executive, Mary Barra, to find a way to keep the plant open. 

Brown, who is contemplating a presidential run in 2020, has urged Trump to back legislation he has introduced that would give consumers $3,500 rebates on American-made cars.