“It’s a slap in the face to the U. S. workers who built an American icon,” said Robert Martinez Jr.,
the international president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Motorcycles made in the new factory — plans for which had not been previously disclosed — will be sold in
Asia, not the United States, which its domestic plants will continue to serve, Harley-Davidson said.
And Mr. McAllister of Harley-Davidson said the Thai plant would lower the transport
and shipping time to the Chinese market to around five to seven days, from 45 to 60 days from the United States.
“This is absolutely not about taking jobs out of the United States,” said Marc D. McAllister,
a managing director of international sales at Harley-Davidson based in Singapore.
The Thailand plant will assemble motorcycles for Asia that were previously imported from India or the United States.
“They told me — without even complaining, because they have been so mistreated for so long
that they’ve become used to it — that it’s very hard to do business with other countries because they tax our goods at such a high rate,” he said
