Gabrielle Coppola: Trump’s TPP Pullout May Have Cost Missouri Its Harley Factory: "Harley-Davidson Inc.’s chief executive officer said he may have kept a plant open in Missouri if the U.S. had stayed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the free-trade agreement that President Donald Trump withdrew from last year...
...The motorcycle maker’s decision to shutter its factory in Kansas City and build a plant in Thailand was the “Plan B” that Harley turned to after the U.S. abandoned a trade pact with a bloc of 11 countries mostly in Asia, CEO Matt Levatich said in a phone interview. “We would rather not make the investment in that facility, but that’s what’s necessary to access a very important market. It is a direct example of how trade policies could help this company, but we have to get on with our work to grow the business by any means possible, and that’s what we’re doing.” Harley will cut about 260 jobs as it shifts production from Missouri to its factory in York, Pennsylvania, amid a deepening U.S. demand slump...
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