Chapter 1: What are President Trump's priorities regarding American manufacturing?
One of President Trump's top economic priorities has long been to have more stuff made in America. Our colleague Gavin Bade has been following that effort. And you're usually reporting from here in Washington, D.C. What brought you to Ohio?
You know, one of the things that we do as reporters is you meet with businesses and you see about what is the manufacturing economy like. I started talking to a company that was saying we may have to close down some auto glass plants in Ohio.
The company Gavin talked to is called Vitro. Vitro is a multinational glass company with plants all over the U.S., including a crucial auto glass factory outside Columbus, Ohio. And Gavin says that recently, that factory has been facing a crisis.
They were really concerned about Chinese competition, not coming from overseas, but actually one that had set up here in the U.S.,
That rival is called Fuyao. It's a huge player in the global glassmaking industry. And when Fuyao set up shop in Ohio, it quickly started to out-compete Vitro. What you're describing sounds like Chinese company moves into an American manufacturing town, starts its own factory, and outdoes the factory that's been there for much longer.
It's not great for Vitro in this case, but isn't that just how competition works?
In a big way, that is part of this story, right? And that's certainly what the Fuyao people would say and also kind of some of their allies. But this story is about the risks to U.S.
industry when Chinese investment comes to town, when you allow a Chinese company that comes from a non-market economy to get a toehold in the U.S., and what happens when they are more efficient and allegedly not playing by the same rules.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, February 24th. Coming up on the show, how one Chinese company is disrupting American manufacturing in America's heartland. Vitro is the largest glassmaker in North America. It's headquartered in Mexico, but it has factories everywhere, from Pennsylvania to Kentucky.
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Chapter 2: How is Vitro impacted by competition from Fuyao in Ohio?
If you don't have...
And you just hear the, you know, the clank and grind of all of these, like, you know, very industrial age 20th century machines going on. And it's union. This is UAW. They've got good pay. They've got good benefits. They've got good time off. And they're proud of their work. You know, they're really, really proud of what they do.
For years, vitro was the main glassmaking game in the area. But in 2016, that started to change.
The Chinese-based company Fuyao Glass Industry is starting their first North American glass manufacturing facility in Moraine. The company is expected to bring about 800 jobs over the next five years.
Fuyao took over a former General Motors plant and turned it into a glass factory.
So you've got a ready-made industrial site. You have a state that really wants the investment that's going to give you tax breaks to make an investment here. And you have a sector that, from their perspective, is ripe for disruption. They thought they could do well here, and they were right.
And how did the community react to Fuyao coming to town?
Everyone was all in on this, and it was, you know, on paper, it looked like a great idea. And if you ask people who have jobs there, obviously they like getting paid, they like having a job. And so there was a lot to be gained by Fuyao coming to this area, for sure.
The new factory was also welcomed by politicians from both parties, like Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Ohio's then-governor, Republican John Kasich.
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