Trump Threatens Border Tax on Toyota Corollas from Mexico

President-elect Donald Trump, who earlier this week warned of a “big border tax” on cars General Motors Co. makes in Mexico, has now made the same threat against Toyota Motor Corp.

Trump derides Toyota for planning to build a factory in Baja that will make Corolla small cars. The $1 billion facility he refers to actually is planned for the state of Guanajuato, roughly 1,000 miles away. Toyota makes about 90,000 Tacoma small pickup trucks per year in Baja.

Trump’s threat came shortly after Toyota President Akio Toyoda told reporters he would review the company’s Mexico strategy after the new president takes office and reveals his trade policies. So far Trump has asserted his desire to reduce Mexican imports to the U.S. by raising the specter of import penalties on a company-by-company basis.

Toyota said last spring the Guanajuato facility will have annual capacity to make 200,000 vehicles when it opens in 2019. The plant will showcase a radical new way of making vehicles based on the Toyota New Global Architecture platform, according to the carmaker.

The new Mexican factory is intended to assume Corolla production currently handled by a factory Toyota operates in Cambridge, Ontario. The move will enable the Canadian plant to expand output of hot-selling crossover vehicles. Toyota also makes Corollas in Blue Springs, Miss.