Trump Turns Anger On GM

2017 Chevrolet Cruze Hatchback (Credit: Chevrolet )

Finally, after railing against Ford for months, Donald Trump has found a new target in the automotive industry: GM. The president-elect used his favorite social media platform, Twitter, to rip the American automaker a new one.

What got Trump going apparently was that he realized some Chevy Cruzes are made in Mexico, then sold in the United States. The fact those cars aren’t subject to a huge tariff for being made elsewhere is the issue.

The reality is almost all Cruzes sold in the US are made in Lordstown, Ohio. Only the hatchback version of the car comes from Mexico, and that constitutes a sliver of total sales for this market. Of course, the president-elect failed to mention the Sonic is also made in Mexico, but whatever. Point being, after focusing only on Ford employing Mexicans to build cheap cars with super-thin profit margins, now Trump has finally zeroed in on GM for the same practice.

If successful, Trump will make it so you can’t buy a new Chevy Cruze Hatchback in the United States. Most likely, GM won’t move any production into the country, because most of those cars are shipped to foreign markets in Europe and elsewhere. As Phil LeBeau of CNBC pointed out, about 2.4 percent of all Cruzes sold in the US are hatchbacks. So people who actually prefer hatchbacks to sedans will suffer.