Hyundai Motor Group has managed to get around Trump administration’s pricing threats. Everything it cost was $ 21 billion.
The South Korean conglomerate, known mainly for its cars, is committed on March 24 to allocate $ 9 billion to increase its American automotive production capacity to 1.2 million units per year. Additional $ 6 billion will improve steel operations, increase location and strengthen supply chains. In addition, $ 6 billion will go to energy infrastructure, such as EV load networks.
In total, this investment will double the $ 20.5 billion that Hyundai has allocated since entering the United States in 1986 and is expected to generate more than 100,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities in the United States by 2028, including 14,000 direct and full-time jobs.
The White House immediately presented the announcement as “additional proof that the economic agenda of President Trump works”.
Indeed, the new commitments mark something of a reversal for Hyundai. In 2021, he brought back the production of 70,000 sedans from an Alabama factory to South Korea to support interior employment.
The following year, President Joe Biden signed the law on inflation reduction, which injected billions to strengthen American manufacturing and offered tax credits and subsidies to encourage companies to extend production facilities, especially if they helped create a greener economy. By 2024, Hyundai had returned to the United States and paid $ 7.6 billion in the manufacture of electric vehicles near Savannah, Georgia.
But, according to Euisun Chung, Executive President of Hyundai, it was a meeting with Trump in Seoul in 2019 that inspired these Georgia plans. Flatterie has earned Chung and South Korea a price exemption.
“Hyundai will produce steel in America and will do its cars in America, and as a result, they will not have to pay prices,” Trump said at a meeting with Chung in the White House.
Hyundai is not the only car manufacturer to avoid new samples. With Trump threatening to impose 25% of prices on Canada and Mexico products from April, car manufacturers like Honda and Nissan – both based in Japan – would have rethought their manufacturing configurations in Mexico and move to the United States. Rolls-Royce based in London; Volvo de Gothenburg, in Sweden; And Volkswagen, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, also plans an American expansion. By dodging the prices through their American factories, these companies could also gain a competitive advantage over competitors based in Detroit like Ford and GM, which still count on Mexican production in various ways.