BMW: Trade War could lead to job losses in Spartanburg

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you probably already heard that there’s a trade war looming over us all. President Trump seems fixed on picking fights with everybody and that, of course, means a lot of things will change, especially prices. Right now, the US is negotiating with both China and the EU regarding the enforcement of extra taxes on certain products, taxes that will lead to a drop in demand and could also translate into some job cuts.

According to Automotive News, during a recent automotive conference in Stuttgart, the BMW CEO, Oliver Zipse, said this scenario is a losing one for everyone involved and he’s of course right. “If they do this, then we are all losers,” he said. “I have the impression they are listening carefully. The export model sustains many jobs in the United States.” He is, of course, referring to BMW’s plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, one of the biggest the Bavarian manufacturer has around the globe.

That’s where most BMW X models are made and they are one of the biggest exporters in the US right now, which would definitely be affected by a trade war. Around 70 percent of the cars made there are going to other countries and that brings a lot of revenue back to the US, as well as provide a serious number of jobs for people in the vicinity. BMW has recently invested a lot of money into expanding its plant’s manufacturing capacity, which is now capable of churning out around 450,000 cars per year.

These concerns have been shared by the BMW CEO with Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative earlier this year. Whether anyone in the White House will actually listen and do something about this predicament remains to be seen but BMW has already been making moves to safeguard its business, by expanding other manufacturing locations around the world, the most important of which being located in China.

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