Japanese government leaps to Toyota’s defence after Trump twitter attack
Tokyo — The Japanese government defended Toyota on Friday as an "important corporate citizen" of the US, after incoming president Donald Trump threatened to slap punitive tariffs on its Mexican-built cars.Trump has threatened a 35% tariff on cars imported from Mexico and repeatedly hit at US companies for using lower-cost factories abroad at the expense of jobs at home. He criticised US car makers including Ford, which this week scrapped a planned $1.6bn Mexico plant.But the attack on Toyota is his first on a foreign car maker. Trump tweeted: "Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for US NO WAY! Build plant in US or pay big border tax."Toyota shares fell more than 3% before recovering. Honda Motor and Nissan Motor slid about 2%, even as the government sought to shrug off the attack.Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Friday that Toyota was an "important corporate citizen". Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko stressed ...
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