Trump’s Twitter conflict on Toyota alarms Japan

Donald Trump’s Twitter debate opposite a vehicle attention has left global.

After berating Ford and GM, a U.S. president-elect is now going after Toyota for creation cars in Mexico for a U.S. market. His conflict has set off alarm bells in Japan, call a inhabitant supervision and another tip carmaker to step into a fray.

Japan’s arch supervision orator Yoshihide Suga shielded Toyota (TM) on Friday, observant it has been “a good corporate citizen for a U.S.”

Trump opposes Toyota’s skeleton to set adult a new plant in Mexico even yet a association says it won’t cost a U.S. any jobs. He threatened to slap a “big limit tax” on Toyota cars if a plant isn’t built in a U.S.

Related: Toyota to Trump: Mexico plant won’t means U.S. pursuit losses

The president-elect’s attacks on individual companies are spooking other automakers.

“We need laws, regulations, expectations, policies to be announced, and we follow it,” Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn pronounced in an interview with a Financial Times after Trump’s Toyota tweets. “Because this has got to request to everybody, we’re all in a same boat.”

Ghosn has good reason to be concerned. Nissan could humour some-more than other automakers if Trump imposes high tariffs on cars made in Mexico, according to Koji Endo, an vehicle researcher during Advanced Research Japan.

Nissan is one of a biggest carmakers in Mexico, contracting some-more than 14,500 people and producing 850,000 vehicles per year. About 30% of Nissan cars sole in a U.S. are exported from Mexico, Endo estimates, compared with only 5% for Toyota.

Related: GM, Chrysler have some-more workers in Mexico than Ford

Other general carmakers that use Mexico for production embody GM (GM), Chrysler (FCAU), Ford (F), Volkswagen (VLKAF) and Hyundai (HYMTF), creation them potentially exposed to Trump’s “big limit tax.”

“There would be a disproportion in impact, (but) everybody has a large plant in Mexico,” Endo said.

After Trump’s threat, Toyota and a Japanese supervision highlighted a critical links between Japan’s vehicle attention and a U.S. economy.

Related: Trump threatens GM: Make Cruze in U.S. or ‘pay large limit tax’

Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko pronounced Japanese vehicle firms make a “huge contribution” to a U.S., putting a series of jobs they support during 1.5 million.

That guess appears to embody jobs via a supply chain. Toyota says it employs 136,000 workers in a U.S.; Nissan says it directly employs 22,000.

Honda, another of Japan’s tip automakers, has 16,000 employees in U.S. production plants. It says it doesn’t have any skeleton during a impulse to supplement to a Mexican factories, though it’s still gripping a tighten eye on Trump’s pronouncements.

“We will only watch how a plan will pierce and how he will demonstrate something new,” a Honda mouthpiece said.

— CNN’s Junko Ogura contributed to this report.

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