Without Ex-Im support, GE still plans to cut 350 jobs in Waukesha

(GM Today, Waukesha, 24 January 2017) With a possible tariff imposed upon companies that manufacture products out of the country and bring them back in looming, GE will not alter its plan to send 350 manufacturing jobs from its Waukesha plant to Canada. Instead, the company remains open to the possibility of working with the city in the future to repurpose its GE Power & Water facility. GE announced in September 2015 that it was going to stop manufacturing gas engines in Waukesha in favor of a new $265 million facility to be built in Welland, Ontario, Canada. GE’s manufacturing of those engines in Waukesha Wisconsin will cease around 2018. The reason for the move, the company said, was because at the time, Congress had allowed the Export-Import Bank’s authorization to lapse. A GE spokesman said the company will continue investing in the United States and possibly Waukesha, but without a fully-operational Ex-Im Bank, large projects become increasingly more difficult to initiate. The move to Canada is going ahead despite President Trump's vow to impose a 35% tax tariff on products they want to sell back in the U.S. on companies if they leave the country. [Efforts to allow the Ex-Im Board to fund deals over $10 million still face opposition in Congress despite support from business and some conservatives.]