South Korean auto giant Hyundai on Monday announced a multibillion-dollar investment in the U.S., including a new $5.8 billion steel plant.
The plant, which will be based in Louisiana, will create 1,300 jobs in the U.S., Hyundai executive chairman Euisun Chung told reporters at a White House event alongside President Trump. The move will also serve “as the foundation for a more self-reliant and secure automotive supply chain in the U.S,” the car executive added.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on companies that do not shift manufacturing jobs to the U.S. from overseas.
In response, domestic and foreign firms, including Apple and Oracle, have announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into U.S. projects over the next four years. In February, the iphone maker said it planned to invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four year, including a new manufacturing plant in Houston, Texas.
“Hyundai will be producing steel in America and making its cars in America, and as a result they’ll not have to pay any tariffs,” Mr. Trump said, noting that the steel plant would be the Korean automaker’s first in the U.S.
Hyundai Steel, an affiliate of the automaker, will build an electric arc furnace steel mill in Louisiana that can produce 2.7 million tons of steel per year, the company said in a news release, without disclosing where in the state the plant will be situated.
The company also said it will invest $6 billion as part of deepening its collaboration with U.S. companies in areas including self- driving cars, robotics and artificial intelligence.
Experts have expressed concern about the impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy, warning that such levies act as taxes on American consumers, who tend to bear the brunt of additional costs passed on by manufacturers.
The Trump administration has threatened on April 2 to impose 25% tariffs on U.S. imports from Mexico and Canada, as well as even more sweeping matching levies on a number of other countries. Mr. Trump on Monday also threatened to implement a “secondary” tariff on Venezuela because it is home to a transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua, along with 25% tariffs against any nation that continues to buy oil or gas from the country.
Mr. Trump said Monday that Hyundai’s commitment to expand in the U.S. is “a clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work.”
