\u00a0Dingell was backed in the 1980s and ’90s by fierce protectionists at Ford and Chrysler.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cOf our $173-billion trade deficit in 1986, Japan alone accounted for more than one-third,\u201d\u00a0Ford CEO Harold Poling wroite in The New York Times in 1987. \u201cOf that, more than half was due to automobiles. The arithmetic is compelling. You cannot lower the trade deficit unless you address the automotive component.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca raged against imports, even as US transplants grew to eight by 1992: \u201cThey say all of our problems are our fault. That’s like blaming our army and our navy for Pearl Harbor because they weren’t ready. I mean Japan . . . targets this market.\u201d<\/p>\n
But with the Japanese transplants came hundreds of auto supplier firms and tens of thousands of new American jobs and auto dealerships down the I-75 corridor. Foreign automakers were not only popular with American consumers, they became integral to American communities and the revival of U.S.\u00a0manufacturing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy establishing a viable new model of production organization in the U.S., (transplants) are contributing to the re-industrialization of American manufacturing,\u201d wrote University of California professor\u00a0Martin Kenney and Carnegie-Mellon\u2019s Richard Florida in 1992.<\/p>\n
Auto analyst Phillippi says the transplants\u2019 huge Midwest steel, rubber\u00a0and manufacturing spine grew a key Southern spur with the opening of BMW\u2019s Spartanburg,\u00a0South Carolina transplant in 1994. BMW\u2019s goal: be closer to its rich U.S.\u00a0customer base and farther from expensive European unions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy now, trade was well down on the list for automakers\u2019 reasons to locate here,\u201d says Phillippi. \u201cJust look at the costs of building in Europe. The facilities here are non-union.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, BMW Spartanburg is one of the largest plants in the U.S.\u00a0with 9,000 employees producing 1,900 SUVs a day. It supports 235 local suppliers;\u00a070 percent of production is exported via Charleston\u2019s port to 140 countries.<\/p>\n
BMW\u2019s success attracted other luxury makers like Mercedes and Volvo (the latter also manufactures in Sweden, Belgium, India\u00a0and China) to the region with its infrastructure, trained non-union workforce\u00a0and major port. Hyundai and Kia transplants have also located nearby in Alabama and Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is the harbor, the logistics\u00a0and of course, the suppliers,\u201d says Gustafsson, who acknowledges BMW\u2019s pioneering role. \u201cThere is the competence in the area and that is the most precious thing in this industry. We need to hire extremely competent colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Volvo has protested government tariffs and says it\u2019s been thrown \u201ca curveball\u201d with China\u2019s import duties (ironically, the Swedish company is Chinese-owned). Volvo had planned to export 50 percent of S60 production to China and Europe (which has a 10 percent tariff).<\/p>\n
Gustafsson shrugs off the trouble as a near-term glitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have learned there are things that we cannot do anything about, we don\u2019t spend time on,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen we took a decision to go for a plant in the U.S., there is always plus and minus. I think we will find a good solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillippi agrees: \u201cChina tariffs are a temporary hiccup. If you design from day one to build three or four models in a plant, then they can move capacity where they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big Three automakers have become less protectionist as they, too, have built flexible, global capacity.<\/p>\n
With Volvo\u2019s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) platform, Gustafsson says South Carolina can build everything from utes to sedans. \u201cEighty percent of our sales volume here is XC90, XC60, and XC40 (SUVs). So we have the right ice cream in our box. But consumer behavior changes now much faster …\u00a0so you need to stand on your toes and have ice cream for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sweden\u2019s Volvo is the latest foreign manufacturer to open a \u201ctransplant\u201d in the United States. Production of the 2019 S60 sedan northwest of Charleston, South Carolina, ramped up this month just as America goes through another spasm of protectionism. President Donald Trump\u2019s nationalist crusade for tariffs mirrors Michigan Congressman John Dingell\u2019s call for import quotas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Production](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2018\/10\/12\/PDTN\/9508a87a-dcba-4eb0-827d-93d39ca3e7fc-volvo_s60-line.JPG?width=540&height=405&fit=bounds&auto=webp\")
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