One day after GM CEO Mary Barra met with National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow at the White House, shortly after the US auto giant announced plans to shutter five factories in the U.S. and Canada and lay off over 14,000 employees, Donald Trump’s top economic adviser said he had conveyed to Barra the “president’s anger” over her plans to close U.S. factories and lay off thousands of workers.
“The president is very cross with her and of course I transmitted that,” Kudlow told reporters on Tuesday. “Tragically, they are going to lay off a whole bunch of workers.”
Kudlow also made it clear that the “angry” President feels betrayed, and believes that General Motors “turned their back on him” in announcing layoffs and plant closures. While investors cheered the news, sending GM shares higher, but in Washington there was bipartisan anger that the company is trimming its workforce in the midst of an economic expansion.
“These are their business decisions, I just think there’s a tremendous amount of disappointment, maybe even spilling over into anger. President Trump expressed his dissatisfaction, lots of other people did, this is a bipartisan thing”, Kudlow said.
“I met with [GM CEO Mary] Barra, whom I generally like. I have no idea if she’s made the right decisions or the wrong decisions, it’s not my business. I do think, however, the president’s point of view is, we concluded the USMCA deal which really helped the American auto business and American auto workers, and was designed to do that. And the car companies supported us” Trump top econ advisor told reporters according to Axios.
“So part of the disappointment is, ‘We made this deal, we worked with you along the way, we’ve done other things — mileage standards for example and other regulations. We’ve done this to help you, and I think his disappointment is it seems like they kind of turned their back on him.”
As Axios notes, since for Trump, politics is always personal, for GM this could mean less influence over future policy.
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