Tokyo: Toyota Motor Corp on Thursday said that company President Akio Toyoda met with US Vice-President-elect Mike Pence in Washington earlier this week as the incoming US administration pressures automakers to build more cars locally.
A Toyota spokeswoman said that Toyoda met with Pence on Tuesday, a day after the Japanese automaker said it would invest $10 billion (Dh3.67 billion) in the United States over the next five years, the same amount it invested in the previous five years.
She added that there were no plans at the moment for Toyoda to meet with US President-elect Trump.
While Toyota declined to comment on details of the meeting, Toyota’s North America Chief Executive Jim Lentz told Reuters earlier this week that the company was focused on reminding policymakers in Washington about the automaker’s extensive US
manufacturing operations.
Pence served as governor of Indiana, where Toyota has an assembly plant, one of 10 manufacturing facilities in the country.
Last week, US President-elect Donald Trump said Toyota could be subject to a “big border tax” if it builds its Corolla cars for the US market at a planned factory in Mexico. Trump has been criticising automakers who manufacture cars in Mexico, a growing production hub.
