CNN
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General Motors said on Tuesday that it would invest $4 billion into three US plants to boost production of gas and electric vehicles, as a 25% tariff on imported cars by President Donald Trump threatens the bottom lines of automakers that sell in the United States.
It was not immediately clear how much of the $4 billion had already been announced or committed.
The automaker’s plan reflects the rush by manufacturers to invest in the United States to sidestep Trump’s tariffs – or at least to make splashy, eye-catching announcements that could win them a reprieve.
GM CEO Mary Barra previously told CNN that the 25% tariff on cars (and on imported auto parts) would cost the company between $4 billion and $5 billion in 2025.
Trump has levied tariffs on several sectors, including a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum that also could hurt automakers, as well as 10% tariffs on US trading partners generally. But he’s also paused, increased, walked back and modified many of his tariffs, leading to confusion among investors, importers and businesses that are trying to figure out how to stay afloat.
The GM investment will go into three locations, the company said in a release: Orion Assembly in Orion Township, Michigan; Fairfax Assembly in Kansas City, Kansas; and Spring Hill Manufacturing in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
GM’s contract with the United Auto Workers in 2023 promised an additional investment in both the Orion and Fairfax assemblies. The contract does not mention a Spring Hill investment.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates our ongoing commitment to build vehicles in the US and to support American jobs,” Barra said in GM’s statement.
GM spokesman Kevin Kelly said the investment announced Tuesday was in addition to the additional investment that the company had promised to make as part of its 2023 labor agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
GM’s announcement did not say the company was shifting any production from its foreign auto plants to the United States, although the gasoline-powered version of the Blazer, which will now be built in Spring Hill, Tennessee, is current built in Mexico.
It had previously announced that it was increasing production of the Silverado pickup at its Fort Wayne, Indiana, plant, but it did not announce plans to cut Mexican or Canadian production of those best-selling pickup trucks.
In 2024, GM built nearly 1 million cars in Canada and Mexico, according to figures from S&P Global Mobility, compared to 1.7 million it built at US factories. Most of those Mexican and Canadian built cars were shipped to GM’s US dealerships.
It also imported an additional 415,000 cars it built in South Korea to US dealerships, with about half of those sales the Trax compact SUV. And it imported 47,000 Buick Envision SUVs from China. Other than the gasoline-powered Blazer, of which it sold about 53,000 last year, GM has no immediate plans to shift foreign production to US facilities, Kelly said.
The United Auto Workers union praised GM’s move – and Trump’s use of tariffs.
“While other companies drag their feet, GM is showing that strategic auto tariffs work with a massive $4 billion investment that will create thousands of good paying union jobs,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “It’s time to invest in blue collar America, and GM is showing how it’s done. This is just the beginning.”
Trump has been vocal in demanding companies move production to the United States, one of the stated goals of his tariff campaign, which will touch products across a broad swath of American life.
GM was the first major company to estimate a dollar amount for its costs from Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Many other companies have walked back earnings forecasts because of the ensuing economic uncertainty or have said they will likely raise prices at some point this year. Ford, for example, said it expects to raise its US car prices as much as 1.5% in the second half of 2025 due to the import levies.
While GM is not the dominant global auto player it once was, it is still the largest automaker in terms of American sales, with 2.7 million cars and trucks sold in the US last year. And all of those cars and trucks, not just the imports, are vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs to some extent.
Even the 1.7 million cars and trucks GM built in the US last year depended on imported parts to some degree (although some of the tariffs on imported car parts can be mitigated for domestic manufacturers).
CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn contributed reporting.
