President Donald Trump has accused China of destroying millions of jobs in recent decades and, in the course of his recent summit meeting in Florida with Chinese President Xi Jinping he expressed a desire to see China make a more committed approach towards trade.
Trump was probably not aware that Chinese money was already at work in Ohio to provide jobs to Americans. Fuyao Glass, a Chinese firm, had invested $600-million to set up a facility in the month of October in Moraine, the county that voted in favor of Trump.
The company are specialists in auto glass manufacturing and boasts of its association with nearly one-fourth of the cars on the planet.
Their new Fuyao plant in Ohio will supply their products to Detroit and other automobile belts and it has already generated at least 2000 jobs with plans to hire some more.
Chinese investment in U.S. industries
CNN reports that Chinese investment is not confined to only the Fuyao plant. Other Chinese firms have also shown interest to invest in the U.S. and Chinese direct investment has increased three times last year to reach the $46 billion mark. The employment potential has also gone up by nearly 50% to reach a figure of 141,000. These are as per statistics of a research firm Rhodium Group.
The Fuyao plant in Moraine is situated in a place that used to be occupied by a factory of General Motors which wound up in 2008 due to a financial crisis.
The GM factory used to make SUVs and trucks and had thousands of employees. The present investment of Fuyao in the United States is of the order of about $1 billion and its activities are not restricted to Moraine but, also in two smaller plants in Illinois and Michigan.
Trump has to rethink his strategies
Donald Trump has been a critic of China and blamed it for large-scale loss of American jobs due to, what he termed as, unfair trade practices.
When on the campaign trail, he took a tough stand against China which endeared him to the people of Montgomery County and the scales tilted in his favor.
His aggressive attitude has not affected the outlook on Fuyao's chairman, Cao Dewang who has gone ahead with expansion plans in the United States. His logic is simple – he understands business as does Trump and knows that accusations against China were a part of Trump’s campaign strategy and should be treated as such.
Under the circumstances, Donald Trump needs to organize his support staff and unearth full details of the extent of present investment in the U.S. by China and also prospects of additional investments. These will ultimately translate into business opportunities and Trump would not like to ignore that.
