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Arkansas is Toyota's political solution Sunday, Jun 4, 2006 By David Sanders Toyota should build its next major automotive production plant in Marion, if what an unnamed company executive said is true. Last week, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, reported that Toyota "has mapped out plans to add 10 new automobile assembly plants worldwide to build a 41-plant network by the end of 2010 to emerge as the world's biggest automaker. "A senior Toyota executive said the company intends to open another assembly plant in Texas - its eighth production facility in North America - as early as 2009 in order to avert a fresh round of trade friction with the United States over the automobile trade," Yomiuri reported. Our Japanese friends know a lot about making cars, making them efficiently and to sell well in the U.S. market. They are experts in their field; however, I'm not sure they have a complete grasp of American politics and government. Let's go back and parse the last statement I quoted. First, the unnamed official said the company intends to open another plant in Texas. Toyota already builds its Tundra truck in the Lone Star State. I'm told, and it has been reported, that San Antonio beat out the Marion site because the Japanese wanted to take advantage of Texas' large truck-buying market. Selling Texas-made Toyota trucks to Texans makes sense. If it was a wise decision to build a truck plant in Texas, would it be wise (given the unnamed executive's reasoning) to place a second plant there? Before I continue with the parsing, it is worth noting that last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Hidehiko "T.J." Tajima, Toyota's San Antonio plant manager, had a set of blueprints that may telegraph Toyota's intentions of building a second Texas plant. "The blueprint shows a second plant next to the new Tundra factory. Mr. Tajima jokes that the space is just a golf driving range. But in the end he says it is 'a possible future expansion area' for a second assembly line. A Toyota spokesman says no decisions have been made on the second plant," the Journal reported. If Toyota officials have made up their minds about Texas, they may be relying on faulty analysis. Parsing on. The reasoning for building the second plant in Texas seems somewhat straightforward. The unnamed company official said they intend to open the new Texas plant as early as 2009 to avert a fresh round of trade friction with the United States over the automobile trade. While the last reason given to build a plant in Texas was driven by marketing, if what the Toyota official said is accurate, politics would be the reason for building a second plant in Texas. Avoiding a "fresh round of trade friction with the United States" will require a political solution. Governing in America is about building consensus. If Toyota wants to avoid a run-in over trade, it would make sense to add more people to its team. One could assume that Toyota already has a few sympathetic elected officials. As it stands today, eight U.S. senators and 100 U.S. representatives hail from states that boast Toyota plants: California, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas. If Toyota builds its next plant in Texas, no one is added to its "political team." I am not sure how that helps. (President Bush is on his way out.) If, on the other hand, they build the next plant in Marion, the company could count on having two more sympathetic U.S. senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, who could help them avoid any future trade friction. The 2,100-acre super project site near Marion is a great location; the company's executives have said so in the past. Toyota should add to its "team" in Washington by building its next plant in Arkansas, that is, if what an unnamed company executive said is true. ------- David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com. |
