Author: Natalie Kitroeff and Patricia Cohen / Source: New York Times
Darren Hauck/Reuters
Foxconn, the giant Taiwan-based company that announced plans for a $10 billion display-making factory in Wisconsin, now says it is rethinking the project’s focus because of “new realities” in the global marketplace.
The project was hailed by President Trump at a groundbreaking last June as the “eighth wonder of the world” and an example of his efforts to attract foreign investment to create manufacturing jobs.
The company said Wednesday that it remained committed to creating as many as 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, and continued to “actively consider opportunities” involving flat-screen technology. But it said it was also “examining ways for Wisconsin’s knowledge workers to promote research and development.”
“The global market environment that existed when the project was first announced has changed,” Foxconn said in a statement. “As our plans are driven by those of our customers, this has necessitated the adjustment of plans for all projects, including Wisconsin.”
But the company said its presence in Wisconsin remained a priority, and said it was “broadening the base of our investment” there.
The statement followed a Reuters report quoting Louis Woo, a special assistant to Foxconn’s chairman, Terry Gou, as saying that the costs of manufacturing screens for televisions and other consumer products are too high in the United States.
“In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,” Mr. Woo told Reuters. “We can’t compete.”
Foxconn is a supplier to Apple and other tech giants. It was lured to Wisconsin in 2017 after former Gov. Scott Walker and state lawmakers agreed to more than $4 billion in tax credits and other inducements over a 15-year period. Those subsidies amounted to $15,000 to $19,000 per job annually, for a plant that the company said would employ as many as 13,000 workers in Mount Pleasant, near Racine.
The prospective shift by Foxconn was met with dismay. “This news is devastating for the taxpayers of Wisconsin,” said Assemblyman Gordon Hintz, the Democratic minority leader. “We were promised manufacturing jobs. We were promised state-of-the-art LCD production. We were promised a game-changing economic opportunity for our state.”
Some Wisconsin Republicans blamed the company’s change in plans on the election of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, to succeed Mr. Walker,…
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