Today, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI) issued the following statement after meeting with GM CEO Mary Barra:
"It was important that Mary Barra meet with the Michigan delegation today to address the high level of concern about the potential plant closings and keeping jobs in the Michigan and United States. A key issue we discussed was GM’s continued decision to locate product in Mexico – the most recent being the Blazer several month ago. This past year, GM produced 726,000 vehicles in Mexico. Over 80 percent of those vehicles were shipped to the US for sales to American consumers. In contrast, production at the GM plants targeted for closure was 165,000 in the US and 100,000 in Canada. GM’s excess capacity in North America has been created by GM’s investment decisions in the last several years. Product decisions made by the company have left US and Canadian plants with low volume. We want to keep that product here.
“It’s clearly a very complicated time. This is a cyclical industry operating in an extremely competitive global environment. Other countries work hard to keep jobs in their countries, and we want to work hard to keep jobs in this country’s and support the hard-working men and women. We also want to make sure we are supporting policies that keep this country at the forefront of innovation and technology and the United States remain a world-wide leader in transportation and mobility.”
