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"I
want new plants to be built here for cars sold here!" Trump said
in a tweet ahead of the breakfast meeting with automakers,
saying he would discuss U.S. jobs with the chief executives.
Trump has criticized automakers for building cars in Mexico and
elsewhere and has threatened to impose 35 percent tariffs on
imported vehicles.
The meeting is the latest sign of Trump's uncommon degree of
intervention for a U.S. president into corporate affairs as he
has repeatedly jawboned automakers and other manufacturers to
"buy American and hire American."
It will be the first time the CEOs of the big three automakers
meet jointly with a U.S. president since a July 2011 session
with then-president Barack Obama to tout a deal to nearly double
fuel efficiency standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Fiat
Chrysler is the Italian-American parent of the former
Michigan-based Chrysler.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday said Trump "looks
forward to hearing their ideas about how we can work together to
bring more jobs back to this industry."
U.S. and foreign automakers have been touting plans to boost
American jobs and investments in the face of Trump's comments.
The Republican president made attacks on Ford's Mexico
investments a cornerstone of his campaign.
Automakers have praised Trump's policies, but emphasized that
the recent employment moves were the result of business, not
political decisions, that had mostly been in the works for a
long period.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Susan
Heavey; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
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