美国总统特朗普对韩措施 韩国人很郁闷

choi

(1) 刘水, 美国总统特朗普对韩措施 韩国人很郁闷. RFA, Feb 15, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yat ... 02152018102822.html
("韩国通用汽车日前发表说，将于5月底关闭位于群山的厂房。 * * * 韩国政府认为，这是通用全球战略的决策，在此之前，通用还关闭了澳大利亚的厂房。 * * * 关闭通用群山厂会造成2000多人失业，但是对整个产业链来说，失业会高达20多万人 [restaurants; truck drivers of suppliers etc; anyway 200k is a bit of exgageration to me]。如何解决失业和地区经济是韩国政府急需应对的问题。就在这期间，隔岸的华盛顿传来消息说，特朗普总统星期二在白宫举行有关贸易的会议，在该会议上提到通用关闭群山厂房的决定")

(2) Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, Members of Congress, and Members of the Cabinet in Meeting on Trade/ White House, Feb 13, 2018
https://www.whitehouse.gov/brief ... inet-meeting-trade/
("Cabinet Room   11:44 AM EST")

Consecutive paragraphs:

"THE PRESIDENT: * * * One thing I just — I do want to tell you, we just got this notice.  General Motors in Korea announces the first step in necessary restructuring.  They're going to — GM Korea company announced today that it will cease production and close its Gunsan plant in May of 2018, and they're going to move back to Detroit.

"You don't hear these things, except for the fact that Trump became President.  Believe me, you wouldn't be hearing that.  So they're moving back from Korea to Detroit.  They're moving.

"Also, you saw Chrysler moving from Mexico to Michigan.  And you have many other companies.  They all want to be where the action is.  The big tax cuts had a big impact.  And Kevin knows that maybe better than anybody.  But it had a big impact on that decision.

"But when you see that General Motors — we have a very bad trade deal with Korea.  Very, very bad trade deal.  It’s a deal that — it’s incompetent that somebody could have made a deal like that.

"So we have a horrible trade deal with Korea.  But now, even before we do something with that — because we’re negotiating the trade deal with Korea, and we’ll either negotiate a fair deal or we’re going to terminate the deal.  But before we do that, already General Motors is coming back into Detroit.  That is a really significant statement.  Many others to follow from many other countries.

Note:
(a) Gunsan  群山市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunsan
(b) Already, many news reports in US says it is untrue, that GM is moving those production back to US. The debate will go on for a few days more. So I will not get into it today.
(c) One of American news paper today (in print) that says Trump's statement is untrue is Detroit Free Press, which in addition points to low productivity (but not higher wages) in quotation (ii) reproduced below.

Kim Seong-min, Over 2,000 Jobs to Be Lost as GM Korea Shuts Down Plant/ Chosun Ilbo, Feb 14, 2018.
http://english.chosun.com/site/d ... /2018021401598.html

Quote:

(i) "GM Korea operates two more car plants in Korea, in Bupyeong [仁川廣域市] 富平[區] west of Seoul and Changwon 昌原市 [western neighbor of 釜山廣域市] in South Gyeongsang Province, and employs 14,200 workers, swelling to 300,000 if subcontractors are included.

(ii) "Another reason is the high wages and low productivity at the Korean subsidiary. Korean automakers are plagued by one of the lowest productivity rates in the global industry and endless battles with their militant unions.

"It takes Korean automakers an average 26.8 hours to roll out one vehicle, compared to 24.1 hours at Japan's Toyota and 23.4 at GM in the U.S. But the average annual wage at Korea's five automakers in 2016 was W92.13 million, while Toyota's average annual wage worldwide is W91 million and Volkswagen's W80 million.