Companies including Toyota Motor Corp., Volvo Cars and Daimler AG have announced $5.5bn in new American factory investments so far this year, shy of the $10.2bn averaged annually this decade.
General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., the two biggest U.S. carmakers, are cutting shifts or scheduling time off at plants as industry sales slow.
The data underscores the challenge Trump has had getting a globalized industry to plow money into a market that’s shrinking for the first time in eight years. Some auto companies have responded to the pressure the president has put on them to manufacture more in America by issuing statements about investments initially disclosed years earlier.
“A lot of what made headlines earlier this year were announcements that had previously been known,” said Kristin Dziczek, director of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research.The re-announcements reflected “political expediency” as Trump was taking office and using Twitter to criticize automakers’ investments in Mexico.
