THREE YEARS AGO: Trump Touted Foxconn Jobs Deal — Now They May Move to China
July 26, 2020
Three years ago, Trump touted a jobs deal with Foxconn and falsely claimed credit for the company investing billions into Wisconsin. The deal didn’t turn out to be all Trump claimed and the manufacturing jobs Trump promised for Wisconsin may now end up in China.
Three years ago today, Trump touted a jobs deal with Foxconn.
TRUMP: “Thank You Foxconn, For Investing $10 BILLION DOLLARS With The Potential For Up To 13K New Jobs In Wisconsin! MadeInTheUSA”
White House: “President Trump Welcomes Foxconn to the White House for a Major Jobs Announcement.”
Trump later took credit for Foxconn investing in the United States.
WSAU: “President Trump is taking credit for bringing Foxconn to Wisconsin, stealing some of Scott Walker’s thunder at a meeting in Washington. Speaking at a White House meeting yesterday, Trump said the Taiwan based company wouldn’t be building a factory in this country if he wasn’t elected. ‘Frankly, they weren’t going to come to this country. I hate to say it, if I didn’t get elected they wouldn’t be in this country.’ He then turned to Scott Walker and added, ‘I think you know that very well.’”
The deal Trump touted could have cost Wisconsin taxpayers billions.
Bloomberg: “About $4.5 billion to be exact. Since the state already has very low tax rates for manufacturers, much of this subsidy will be paid directly in cash rather than as tax credits. This is a staggering amount of money — about $1,800 per Wisconsin taxpayer — for a factory like this.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “At more than $200,000 in state taxpayer money per job, the incentive package for the Taiwanese company is easily the state’s most expensive deal of 2017, totaling more than three times as much per job as the next most costly deal.”
And now Foxconn abandoned its original manufacturing investment plan and is considering shifting that production to China.
Reuters: “Foxconn Technology Group is reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus, and said it intends to hire mostly engineers and researchers rather than the manufacturing workforce the project originally promised… Rather than manufacturing LCD panels in the United States, Woo said it would be more profitable to make them in greater China and Japan, ship them to Mexico for final assembly, and import the finished product to the United States.”
CNBC: “Since then, the company downgraded the plant to ‘Generation 6’ and abandoned plans to build the large displays in favor of smaller panels. Evers told CNBC last year that he expects the facility’s initial phase will employ only about 1,500 people. In 2018, the first full year under the contract, the company fell short of the hiring benchmarks in the contract and did not collect any subsidies.”
Axios: “Foxconn backs out of Wisconsin manufacturing job pledge Trump touted”