Honda CEO states to stick with North American production plans at this moment

Honda will stick to its North American production strategies as it waits to see if President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on a campaign promise to dispose the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after he takes office, the car manufacturer’s CEO stated on Monday.

“It is still unclear what Trump’s policies will be. We can’t unexpectedly make production modifications and that is an issue not just for us but for all automakers in the United States,” Takahiro Hachigo stated at a briefing in Tokyo on Monday.

Eliminating the NAFTA, which Trump has referred as a jobs killer while attacking the outsourcing of American automobile jobs to Mexico, might result in tariffs on automobiles integrated in Mexico that Honda and other automakers offer in the United States.

Honda has 2 auto plants locatedin Mexico, one in Celaya and the other in Guadalajara that together construct around 260,000 cars and 100,000 motorcycles a year. U.S. automobile makers and a number of their providers have based billions of dollars of financial investment on fairly open trade with Mexico, China and other nations.

In April, Ford Motor revealed strategies to invest $1.6 billion to broaden production of small vehicles in Mexico.