Despite the economic boost that foreign investment can bring U.S. manufacturing, its outcomes can sometimes have negative consequences when a foreign-owned company "clobbers" its longtime American-owned competitor.
"The rise of a Chinese automotive-glass plant in the Ohio heartland shows the risks when America’s biggest rival sets up shop," reports Gavin Bade of The Wall Street Journal.
Over the past decade, Fuyao Glass America has chipped away at its competitor's edge. "Vitro, the company that owns a plant in Crestline, Ohio, has spent the past year considering whether to shut down," Bade writes. "Fuyao is threatening about 250 jobs at the rival glass factory [that has been] operating since the 1950s."
When Chinese automotive glass maker, Fuyao, partnered with state and
federal lawmakers to move into an abandoned General Motors factory in
tiny Moraine, Ohio, the project "was hailed as a step to reviving a
battered Rust Belt region," Bade explains. Ohio taxpayers, who supported
Fuyao's move into the region, "now feel duped," according to the report.
Since 2019, Vitro has "shut three auto-glass plants in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana — decisions the company attributes in large part to Chinese competition," Bade reports. American companies like Vitro say they can't compete with Fuyao's pricing and accuse the company of unfair business and labor practices.
A federal raid on the Fuyao plant in 2024 led U.S. authorities to accuse dozens of Chinese business owners of colluding "to facilitate the harboring, transportation, and employment of illegal aliens at various factories,” including Fuyao, which allegedly funneled $126 million to companies in the scheme," Bade writes.
"Fuyao denies any wrongdoing," Bade adds. "Vitro and its Washington allies say Fuyao’s success reflects a way Beijing might try to hollow out American manufacturing capacity and undermine critical industries."
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