Foxconn's planned U.S. plant back on track after talk with Trump

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Foxconn Technology said on Friday that it will move forward with its planned factory in Wisconsin after the company's chairman talked with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The confirmation came after “productive discussions with the White House and the company” and a “personal conversation” between Trump and Foxconn's founder and chairman Terry Gou, the company said without details about employment.

Trump described the clarification as “great news” on Twitter on Friday.

Trump's Twitter on Friday

Before that, Reuters reported on Wednesday that the iPhone maker was reconsidering the plant plan due to the high cost of manufacturing in the country.

Louis Woo, special assistant to Gou, was quoted in the report that the construction plan might be scaled back or even shelved due to the high cost of making advanced TV screens in the U.S., which includes expensive local labor.

In a later statement, the company said the global market environment has changed compared with when the deal was first announced in 2017.

The 20-million-square-foot plant, which is expected to offer up to 13,000 jobs, has the potential to be the largest foreign investment in the U.S. and is praised by Trump as a signature project to bring manufacturing back to the country.

However, controversy plagues the ambitious plan. The state of Wisconsin offered 3 billion U.S. dollars in subsidies to persuade Foxconn to build the plant, and an estimate released in August 2017 by the local legislature's nonpartisan budget office said that Wisconsin would not start collecting any new tax revenue until 2032 and would not break even for more than 25 years.