U.S. food producers and shippers are trying to speed up exports to Mexico and line up alternative markets as concerns rise that this lucrative business could be at risk if clashes over trade and immigration between the Trump administration and Mexico City escalate.

Diplomatic relations have soured fast this month, as the new U.S. administration floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and a meeting between the presidents of the two countries was canceled. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal with Mexico and Canada.

Mexico is one of the top three markets for U.S. farm production.

Some U.S. producers of corn, soybean meal and distillers dried grains (DDGs), an ethanol byproduct, are trying to accelerate sales to Mexico because they are uncertain about the risk for new tariffs to disrupt trade, said Rafe Garcia, general manager for U.S. operations at shipper Primos & Cousins USA.

“They don’t know what will happen in the next month or the next week,” Garcia said about producers. “They are trying to move everything as fast as they can.”

The company, which ships U.S. livestock feed to Mexico and imports Mexican products like molasses, has already talked with U.S. producers about selling into other countries, such as Nicaragua, to reduce their dependence on Mexico, Garcia said.

Exports are critical for U.S. farmers as a global slump in prices for agricultural products has pushed incomes to their lowest in years

Last week, more than 130 trade associations and food companies, including Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] and Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), touted the benefits of NAFTA in a letter to Trump on trade.

Food producers say the agreement has quadrupled U.S. agricultural exports in the region during the past two decades.

Mexico is expected to import about 4 percent of the U.S. corn crop in 2016/17, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It buys 7.8 percent of U.S. pork production, the U.S. Meat Export Federation said.

The agriculture community, which strongly supported Trump during the presidential election, has already voiced its concern that he has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. They are worried Mexico could use tariffs to strike back against Trump’s plans to rework NAFTA and build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants.

Malcolm DeKryger, president of Indiana pork producer Belstra Milling, said he was worried Mexico would impose tariffs on U.S. ham, which could cause Mexican buyers to turn to Brazil or Europe.

“They’re going to retaliate,” he said about Mexico. “The place they can hit back as fast as they can to try to affect our pocket book is the food.”

Mexico could target sanctions on farm products, in particular, in an attempt to punish rural communities that supported Trump in the presidential election, said Katherine Baylis, associate professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois.

“Look at where past trade retaliations have happened: It is amazingly pointed and usually pointed at crucial products from swing states which quite often turn out to be agricultural,” Baylis said.

Prominent Mexican politicians, including former President Felipe Calderon, have said the nation should consider ending purchases of U.S. corn if Trump applies new taxes on Mexican exports.

U.S. company Ingredion Inc (INGR.N), which produces high fructose corn syrup and other corn products, said its “geographic diversity balances country-specific headwinds.”

In 2009 and 2010, Mexico put tariffs on 99 American exports in retaliation when Washington blocked Mexican trucks from using U.S. highways. The strategy targeted products seen as important to specific U.S. regions, including Christmas trees, apples and frozen sweet corn, to maximize political pressure.

The dispute cost U.S. businesses over $2 billion and cut U.S. exports to Mexico of affected agricultural commodities by 27 percent.

General Motors is cutting 625 jobs at its assembly plant near London, Ont., as it shifts some production to Mexico.

Mike Van Boekel, spokesman for Unifor Local 88, says the layoffs will take effect in July at the CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont.

That plant was excluded from negotiations last fall between Unifor and the Big Three automakers, including GM. The CAMI plant is scheduled to have its own negotiations with its roughly 3,000 workers later this year.

“This decision reeks of corporate greed,” Unifor’s national president Jerry Dias said. “It is not based on sales, it is an another example of how good jobs are being shifted out of Canada for cheaper labour in Mexico, and Unifor will not let it happen without a fight.”

Earlier this month, GM announced it would move Terrain production to Mexico from the Ingersoll plant, but boosting production of another vehicle, the Chevrolet Equinox, with the newfound capacity at the CAMI plant.

“It was previously announced with employees that the next generation GMC Terrain will be produced outside of CAMI,” GM spokeswoman Jennifer Wright said. “We have confirmed the production location to be Mexico.”

In an interview with CBC News, Unifor Local 88 president Dan Borthwick said when the Terrain news was announced, it was the union’s understanding that no jobs would be lost in Canada as a result.

“Our understanding [was] that we had sufficient production in the future and we would not be incurring any layoffs,” he said. “Within a week or two weeks we get this horrible news this morning that 600 members would be laid off.”

GM disputes that version of events, saying in a statement it “provided Unifor advanced notification of labour impacts related to product changeovers and transition at its CAMI facility.”

“We continue to work with our Unifor partners to manage through the adjustment with all measures available to us within the collective agreement,” Wright said, adding that the site is expected to remain a three-shift facility “depending on demand for this new generation Equinox.”

Asked for comment, Navdeep Bains, Canada’s minister of innovation, science and economic development, said the government is “concerned about the impact of job losses on workers and their families and our thoughts go out to those affected.”

“We remain optimistic about the strength and future of Canada’s automotive industry,” Bains said.

Speaking to reporters after a caucus meeting in Quebec City, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said the incident speaks to the need for more government action.

“We don’t lose jobs south of the border or to Mexico because we don’t have free enough trade,” she said, “We lose them because we’re uncompetitive.”

“Whether it’s labour costs, or energy costs — people believe that they can’t do business and there isn’t an environment to do business,” Ambrose said.

The move comes against the backdrop of a new administration in the U.S. that has threatened to tear up NAFTA and slap a punitive tariff on companies that make cars outside the U.S. in places like Mexico, which makes about two million cars a year bound for the U.S. market.

The non-partisan think-tank Center for Automotive Research recently estimated that tearing up NAFTA would directly cost 31,000 U.S. auto manufacturing jobs.

How could Mexico inflict the most damage on the United States?

In normal times this question would not be top of mind for Mexican policy makers. Mexican governments over the last quarter-century have consistently pushed back against the nation’s historical resentment toward the United States, hoping to build a more cooperative relationship with its overbearing northern neighbor.

But these aren’t normal times. As President Trump prepares the opening gambit in his project to either renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement or pull out, Mexico’s most important strategic goal is narrowing to one word: deterrence.

It must convince Mr. Trump that if he blows up the trade agreement on which Mexico has staked its hopes of development, by weaving its economy ever more closely into that of the United States, the United States will suffer, too.

The critical question is whether Mexico’s threat will be convincing.

Mexico’s main challenge as it confronts a hostile Trump administration is the enormous asymmetry of the bilateral relationship. Ending Nafta would hurt the United States: Six million American jobs depend on exports to Mexico, according to Mexican officials. But to Mexico, it could prove devastating.

Mexico has relied on the pact to draw foreign capital into the country, not only ensuring multinational companies stable access to the largest consumer market in the world but also guaranteeing that their investment is safe, noted Luis Rubio, who heads the Center of Research for Development in Mexico City.

The makings of a Mexican strategy for defending its interests started coming into focus on Monday, when President Enrique Peña Nieto declared that negotiations for a future relationship with the United States would not be limited to trade.

“We will bring to the table all themes,” he said in a speech. “Trade, yes, but also migration and the themes of security, including border security, terrorist threats and the traffic of illegal drugs, weapons and cash.”

His hope is that by introducing broader uncertainty about the bilateral relationship — Will Mexico still cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking? Will it stop foreign terrorists from using Mexico as a way station into the United States? — Mexico can raise the stakes enough for Mr. Trump to reconsider his “America first” approach to commerce.

“Mexico has a lot of chips to play,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign secretary who has staked out a combative approach.

Let Mr. Trump pull the United States out of Nafta, he argues. Instead of stopping Central American migrants at its southern border, Mexico should let them through on their way to the United States. “And let’s see if his wall keeps the terrorists out, because we won’t,” Mr. Castañeda added.

The view from Mexico City is not uniformly bleak. Some analysts believe there is a potential for a situation in which a new Nafta benefits all. “I have always believed one should never let a good crisis go to waste,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States. “There is an opportunity that we could end up modernizing and improving Nafta.”

The view that there is a potential silver lining to Mr. Trump’s hostility toward Nafta is also popular in some Washington circles. The quarter-century-old agreement is due for some modernization anyway, if only to deal with things like data protection, online crime and e-commerce — which were not around in the early 1990s. Nafta’s weak provisions on labor and environmental standards could also be improved.

Many aspects of Nafta could be upgraded, trade experts say. It could do with new rules to open up government projects to bidders from all three Nafta partners. Allowing long-haul trucking companies from Mexico and the United States into each other’s markets could make trade between the two more efficient. What’s more, the Mexican-American border could benefit from more infrastructure investments to integrate energy networks, reduce clogged lines at border crossings and the like.

Now that Mr. Trump has formally nixed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have tied North America and nine other nations from the Pacific Rim into one large trade bloc, some of its provisions could be drafted into a new North American deal.

Gary Hufbauer of the pro-trade Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington suggests that the name “Nafta” be retired — it has a bad reputation. But a lot of its substance could remain, perhaps in the form of separate bilateral agreements with Canada and Mexico.

“Trump wants some easy victories,” Mr. Hufbauer pointed out. If he can score political points using his Twitter feed to persuade a few companies to keep jobs in the United States, why risk hurting the American economy by abandoning the North American trade deal? “Maybe that’s the reconciliation,” Mr. Hufbauer said.

Still, it’s hard to reconcile the proposal for an improved, more effective trading pact in North America with Mr. Trump’s frequent portrayal of trade as a zero-sum game that inevitably shortchanges the United States.

In Mr. Trump’s eyes, improving Nafta seems to mean eliminating Mexico’s trade surplus with the United States and limiting investment by American multinationals in Mexico. But one can’t quickly eliminate a $60 billion trade surplus with a new Nafta — not unless it has some incredibly draconian limits on imports or local content requirements that could be as damaging to Mexico as abandoning the pact altogether.

Many Mexican officials fear that it is precisely this kind of draconian change that Mr. Trump has in mind. It would be politically profitable, at least in the short term. And it would signal toughness to China — a more formidable rival that is next on Mr. Trump’s list. If Canada stays out of the fray, cutting a separate deal with the United States to replace Nafta, Mexico would be left alone in an existential fight for its future.

In this case, Mexico may have no choice but to raise the stakes and hope to arrive at the negotiating table with a threat at least as credible as Mr. Trump’s promise to pull out of the deal.

Mr. Trump’s negotiating position does have some soft spots. For one, said Mickey Kantor, the American trade negotiator who concluded the Nafta negotiations during the Clinton administration, “he is under pressure to deliver a deal.”

If Mexico stands its ground and even allows Nafta to dissolve, it would send its own signal to China: Resistance is not futile. And Mr. Trump’s threat to raise tariffs against Mexico to 35 percent could easily be challenged under the rules of the World Trade Organization.

This is, of course, a hugely risky strategy for Mexico. When Mr. Trump entered the presidential race in June 2015, a dollar was worth about 15 pesos. Now it’s worth about 22. A frontal confrontation with the United States might send it to 40, Mexican officials fear, fueling capital flight.

And yet that may be Mexico’s strongest card.

As noted by C. Fred Bergsten, director emeritus of the Peterson Institute, an irony of Mr. Trump’s approach to Mexico is that by weakening the peso so much, he is going to increase the bilateral trade deficit, increase Mexico’s competitiveness and make it more attractive for American companies to invest there. “That is going to swamp anything he achieves with his company-by-company efforts,” he added.

That’s if Mexico manages to hold on. The more ominous situation is one in which the United States pushes too hard and Mexico — its economy, its unpopular government, its public order and political stability — buckles. The United States has enjoyed a peaceful southern border for 100 years, since Pancho Villa made his marauding raids into the Southwest during the Mexican Revolution. “That is worth pure gold in this and any other world,” Mr. Castañeda said. “Mexico’s best argument is ‘Don’t mess with that.’”

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico must be ready to respond immediately with its own tax measures if the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump imposes a border tax, the economy minister said on Friday, warning such protectionism may trigger a global recession.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has promised a “major border tax” on companies that shift jobs outside the United States, and such a measure could hobble Mexico’s exports to its top trading partner.

“It is clear we need to be prepared to immediately neutralize the impact of such a measure,” Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said in an interview on Mexican television.

“And it is very clear how – take a fiscal action that clearly neutralizes it,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Mexico over trade, jobs and immigration since he first launched his run for the White House in 2015, driving the peso currency to historic lows and unnerving investors, especially in the auto sector.

Guajardo said Trump’s proposed tax “was a problem for the entire world” and that it “would have a wave of impacts that could take us into a global recession.”

Nonetheless, the minister said he expected foreign direct investment in Mexico this year to total around $25 billion, with investment in the energy and telecommunications sectors expected to more than make up for the loss of a planned $1.6 billion Ford Motor Co. factory that the company said this month it is cancelling. Trump had strongly criticized the plan, but Ford said its decision was not the result of pressure from Trump.

Guajardo also praised the government of Japan and Toyota Motor Corp for their “reasonable” response to Trump’s threat to impose a significant border tax if the company does not stop making its Corolla model in Mexico for the U.S. market. Toyota said last week the automaker has no immediate plans to curb production in Mexico.

“Toyota has 10 plants in the United States… and employs more than 130,000 Americans. If I were Mr. Trump, I’d treat them with more respect,” Guajardo said.

He added that he expects total foreign direct investment during the six-year term of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which ends in late 2018, to average $30 billion annually.

Guajardo has previously warned that U.S. corporate tax cuts proposed by Trump, as well as the border tax, could undermine foreign investment in Latin America’s No. 2 economy.

Mexico slapped a tax on U.S. high fructose corn syrup in the early 2000s after the United States refused to allow free trade in Mexican sugar.

The Mexican peso sank to another historic low on Tuesday in the wake of an unpopular gasoline price hike and US President-elect Donald Trump’s latest protectionist threats against automakers.

The Mexican currency shed 1.59 percent, trading at 22.00 pesos per dollar compared with 21.70 on Monday.

The peso has fallen since Trump won the November 8 US presidential election as investors fret over his threats to impose tariffs on companies that ship jobs to Mexico and his pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Last week, US automaker Ford scrapped plans for a new $1.6 billion factory in Mexico that Trump had criticized, though the company said the decision was business-related.

The Republican property tycoon, who succeeds Democrat Barack Obama as president on January 20, threatened to impose tariffs on General Motors and Japanese rival Toyota last week.

Mexico has also been rocked by daily protests over a fuel price increase.

President Enrique Pena Nieto announced an agreement with businesses on Monday to ensure that prices of basic goods do not increase as well.

“But the heaviest is Mr. Trump, who is hitting us very hard,” said Mercedes Sanabria, analyst at the Mexican foreign exchange firm Casa de Bolsa Ve por Mas.

The central bank sold dollars last week to prop up the peso, “but it’s not enough to mitigate the dollar’s increase due to the uncertainty regarding our country,” she told AFP.

Juan Musi, analyst at CI Estrategia, said markets are also on edge on the eve of a news conference Trump will give on Wednesday.

“The market is anticipating that he will mistreat us. He could give some details about where free trade is going,” Musi told Milenio television.

TOKYO: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) over its Mexican-built cars, but the biggest risk from a punitive tariff would be for its compatriot Nissan Motor Co (7201.T), the largest automaker operating in the country.Trump has criticized U.S. companies like General Motors (G.N) and Ford Motor Co (F.N) which manufacture abroad, accusing them of costing U.S. jobs. On Thursday he took on Toyota, warning the world’s largest automaker that it would face a “big border tax” if it exported Mexico-built cars to the U.S. market.

But it is Nissan, Japan’s second-largest automaker, which would be the bigger victim of any tax punishment. Nissan built its first overseas plant in Mexico in 50 years ago and now produces more than 800,000 cars there, mainly its entry-level Versa and Sentra sedans.

Nissan’s production dwarfs that of Toyota, Honda Motor Co and Mazda Motor Corp in Mexico.

It exports roughly half of its output to the United States, where it also has production plants.

Vehicles made in Mexico comprise roughly one-quarter of Nissan’s total U.S. vehicle sales, industry experts say, compared with around 30 percent for smaller rival Mazda, but less than 10 percent for Toyota and Honda.

Japanese automakers together produced around 1.4 million vehicles in Mexico in the year ended March, nearly 40 percent of the country’s total output. According to the Japan External Trade Organization, they plan to ramp up production to 1.9 million by 2019.

Current production in Mexico is dwarfed by the number of cars they produce in the United States, their single largest market, where Japan’s top three automakers alone produced around 4 million vehicles in 2015.

Trump has said he plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and has vowed to impose a 35 percent tariff on cars exported to the United States from Mexico.

According to JP Morgan estimates, an increase in tariffs on cars exported from Mexico to the United States to even 10 percent would hit Nissan’s consolidated operating earnings by 10.3 percent, more than 5.5 percent at Mazda.

Toyota would see a hit of 0.7 percent, while Honda 2.2 percent.

All four Japanese automakers building cars in Mexico said they have no immediate plans to change operations. But Nissan and Renault SA CEO Carlos Ghosn told Reuters he was watching the incoming Trump administration closely and would respond to whatever policies it adopts.

“I don’t want to preempt or try to guess what’s going to happen,” Ghosn said in an interview on Thursday, on the sidelines of the CES technology show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“It’s not a question that we are afraid or not afraid, we’re dealing with 160 markets in the world, different powers, different policies, different approaches, so we are used to adapting our strategy to different policies,” he said.

One Asian auto executive told Reuters his company long ago made a strategic decision to make Mexico a production hub in North America, and that it is tough to alter its strategy overnight.

“We can’t turn back the clock on these decisions,” said the executive, who did not have clearance to speak to media and so declined to be identified.

“What we need to explain more clearly (to Trump) is that most automakers are not cutting production capacity or jobs in the United States to make Mexico an additional production hub.”

Still, analysts said automakers would likely think twice about expanding production in the country in the coming years.

“As long as this administration is in place I suspect (Nissan is) not going consider any additional capacity there,” CLSA analyst Chris Richter said.

Trump’s criticisms come just as Japanese automakers are shuffling their production portfolios to boost supply of popular, higher-margin sport utility vehicles (SUV) and trucks for the U.S. market.

Honda last year announced it would expand its U.S. production capacity to build more of its CR-V SUV, while shifting production from Mexico.

Toyota has said that its Guanajuato plant under construction in Mexico will produce the entry level Corolla sedan, a vehicle segment currently produced at its plants in Mississippi and Ontario, Canada. Demand for the cars has slumped in recent years as cheap gasoline prices has prompted drivers to buy more SUVs.

“We’re always considering ways to increase production in the United States, regardless of the political situation,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda told reporters on Thursday.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government says it rejects the use of threats to sway investment by foreign firms.

The Economy Department’s Friday statement said it “rejects any attempt to influence companies’ investment decisions based on fear or threats.”

It did not specify what threats it was mentioning, but was apparently referring to U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump’s efforts to persuade companies not to move jobs to Mexico.

This week Ford Motor Co. canceled plans for a new $1.6 billion car plant in Mexico.

Trump tweeted Thursday: “Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax.”

Toyota said it did not plan to abandon plans for a plant in the central state of Guanajuato.

Ford has come under criticism from President-elect Donald Trump for its plans in relation to Mexico

Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday it is scrapping plans for a new $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico, instead choosing to build small cars in an existing Mexican factory, and invest $700 million in a Michigan facility that will build electric vehicles.

The move is a surprising turnaround for Ford (F) after facing criticism by President-elect Donald Trump for more than a year in relation to its Mexico plan. Last month, Chief Executive Mark Fields said it was looking to work with the incoming administration on Trump’s trade agenda, but indicated it was too late to change its specific plan to build a new factory in Mexico.

The announcement comes just hours after Trump criticized Ford rival General Motors Co. (GM) for sending some of its Chevrolet Cruze production from Mexico to U.S. dealerships and paying no taxes. Trump has used the auto industry as an example of why the North American Free Trade Agreement needs to be retooled.

In a press release, Ford said it is canceling the plan for a factory in San Luis Potosi and will instead build its Focus small car in an existing facility in Hermosillo, Mexico. The Focus is currently built in Wayne, Mich., and Ford has said new products are slated for that plant but hasn’t identified specific nameplates.

Rexnord Corp. is pressing ahead with plans to close a factory in Indianapolis and shift many of those jobs to Mexico despite a public shaming from President-elect Donald Trump.

Milwaukee-based Rexnord, a maker of ball bearings and valves, said in a notice Indiana officials received on Friday that it would begin laying off the factory’s approximately 350 employees around Feb. 13.

The layoffs are expected to continue through June, Rexnord said in a notice the company is required by law to provide to employees ahead of their termination.

A Rexnord spokeswoman said Indianapolis employees would earn extra pay if they help train workers visiting from Monterrey, Mexico, and McAllen, Texas. They aren’t required to do so, she said.

Earlier this month, Mr. Trump castigated Rexnord in a Twitter post.

He has also criticized United Technologies Corp.’s Carrier unit for plans to move jobs to Mexico, and Boeing Co. for what he said are cost overruns in building new Air Force One jets to carry the president.

“Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers,” Mr. Trump wrote on Dec. 2. “This is happening all over our country. No more!”

The Rexnord spokeswoman said the company would wind down its Indianapolis operations between April and June. She said the company would retain 25 Indianapolis office jobs there and in Milwaukee. The company is adding 50 jobs in Texas, she added.

Rexnord said more than half its workforce, about 4,000 employees, are in the U.S.

“Difficult decisions are a part of today’s business environment,” Rexnord said. “To be a viable company that contributes to economic growth, we must meet customers’ needs with high-quality products at competitive prices.”

A spokeswoman for the Indiana Economic Development Corp. declined to comment.

Mr. Jones, the union leader, still hopes Rexnord might reverse the decision. “We’re still fighting the fight to keep them from moving,” Mr. Jones said.

Greg Hayes, the CEO of United Technologies, the parent company of the heating and air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier, just let slip a consequence of a deal struck to keep jobs in Indiana.

And American workers won’t like it.

Carrier said last month that it would keep more than 1,000 jobs across two locations in Indiana, following pressure from President-elect Donald Trump. The decision was touted as a win for the incoming president, who had pledged keep the jobs from moving to Mexico.

In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s “Mad Money with Jim Cramer” that aired Monday, Hayes set out the comparative advantages of moving to jobs to Mexico, the motivation behind his decision to keep those jobs in Indiana, and the ultimate outcome of the deal: There will be fewer manufacturing jobs in Indiana.

Before we get to that
First, Hayes was asked what’s so good about Mexico. Quite a lot, it turns out. From the transcript (emphasis added):

JIM CRAMER: What’s good about Mexico? What’s good about going there? And obviously what’s good about staying here?

GREG HAYES: So what’s good about Mexico? We have a very talented workforce in Mexico. Wages are obviously significantly lower. About 80% lower on average. But absenteeism runs about 1%. Turnover runs about 2%. Very, very dedicated workforce.

JIM CRAMER: Versus America?

GREG HAYES: Much higher.

JIM CRAMER: Much higher.

GREG HAYES: Much higher. And I think that’s just part of these — the jobs, again, are not jobs on assembly line that people really find all that attractive over the long term. Now I’ve got some very long service employees who do a wonderful job for us. And we like the fact that they’re dedicated to UTC, but I would tell you the key here, Jim, is not to be trained for the job today. Our focus is how do you train people for the jobs of tomorrow?

So Mexico has cheaper labor with a much more dedicated workforce, and these are the kinds of low-skilled jobs most people don’t find that attractive. Elsewhere in the interview, he made clear that United Technologies intended to keep engineering jobs in the US and that these higher-skilled jobs were not at risk of being moved overseas.

“The assembly lines in Indiana — I mean, great people,” Hayes said. “Great, great people. But the skill set to do those jobs is very different than what it takes to assemble a jet engine.”

Hayes was then asked why he decided to cancel the move to Mexico. From the transcript (emphasis added):

GREG HAYES: So, there was a cost as we thought about keeping the Indiana plant open. At the same time, and I’ll tell you this because you and I, we know each other, but I was born at night but not last night. I also know that about 10% of our revenue comes from the US government. And I know that a better regulatory environment, a lower tax rate can eventually help UTC of the long run.

But here’s the kicker
The result of keeping the plant in Indiana open is a $16 million investment to drive down the cost of production, so as to reduce the cost gap with operating in Mexico.

What does that mean? Automation. What does that mean? Fewer jobs, Hayes acknowledged.

From the transcript (emphasis added):

GREG HAYES: Right. Well, and again, if you think about what we talked about last week, we’re going to make a $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost of labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because we’ll make the capital investments there.

JIM CRAMER: Right.

GREG HAYES: But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.

The general theme here is something we’ve been writing about a lot at Business Insider. Yes, low-skilled jobs are being lost to other countries, but they’re also being lost to technology.

Everyone from liberal, Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman to Republican Sen. Ben Sasse has noted that technological developments are a bigger threat to American workers than trade. Viktor Shvets, a strategist at Macquarie, has called it the “third industrial revolution.”

Hayes said in the same interview that United Technologies was focused on how to “train people for the jobs of tomorrow.”

In the same breath, he seems to be suggesting the jobs it is keeping in Indiana are the jobs of yesterday.