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