Toyota Motor Corp will invest $3.6bn to expand its manufacturing plant in San Antonio, Texas, creating a second vehicle assembly line and around 2,000 jobs by 2030. The move, announced on July 7, will gradually shift part of the production of the Tacoma pickup truck from Mexico to Texas over roughly four years, though Toyota will continue building some Tacoma models — as well as the Corolla — at its Mexican plants.

The expansion will add 2.5mn square feet to the Texas facility, doubling its size, and bring more than 150,000 units of additional annual capacity, closely matching the volume being wound down at Toyota's Tijuana plant in Baja California, El Economista reported. Notably, Toyota's own announcement made no reference to tariffs as a driver of the decision, even as the White House moved quickly to cast it as vindication of its trade policy.

"By expanding our San Antonio plant, we are reinforcing our commitment to American manufacturing, creating meaningful and sustainable jobs," said Tetsuo "Ted" Ogawa, president and chief executive of Toyota North America, who also described the investment as reflecting the company's confidence in the region's workforce, innovation and long-term growth potential.

With the new outlay, Toyota's cumulative investment in San Antonio since construction began in 2003 will reach $8.3bn, and its Texas workforce is expected to grow to roughly 6,000 employees, supported by 23 on-site suppliers. The plant has produced trucks and sport utility vehicles for two decades, assembling more than 197,000 units last year, and remains the sole manufacturing site for the Tundra and Sequoia models.

"San Antonio is proud to be home to Toyota, and we are excited to have been selected for further expansion," said San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.

The latest announcement builds on a broader US investment push: The Japanese automaker said in November it planned to invest up to $10bn in the country over five years, a commitment it began detailing in March with a wider North American investment plan, expanded on in the days following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's visit to the White House. Toyota already ranks among the world's largest carmakers, and the added Texas capacity could support its ambition to become the top-selling carmaker in the US.

President Donald Trump, who has pushed carmakers to shift production to the US through tariffs on vehicles, steel and aluminium, claimed the investment as evidence his policy was working. “Toyota is moving from Mexico to the United States (Texas!). A really big deal. Tariffs at work!” he wrote on Truth Social. Speaking later the same day during a visit to Ankara, Turkey, he returned to the theme: "It came over the wires that Toyota is moving out of Mexico into the United States, and building one of the biggest truck and car plants ever built. It's amazing. That's what tariffs do, properly used." Peter Navarro, the White House's top trade adviser, pointed to the same investment figures as evidence the administration's tariff strategy was reshaping carmakers' production decisions, according to El Economista.

The announcement followed Washington's decision on July 1 not to renew the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in its current form for a further 16 years, subjecting the pact instead to annual reviews, a shift that has unsettled business leaders on both sides of the border. The Trump administration is said to be pushing for revised rules that would require half of all automotive parts and manufacturing to take place in the US, according to Business Insider.

Toyota said it remained committed to its operations across all three USMCA countries, calling for what it termed a swift resolution to the trade dispute to keep North America globally competitive. Toyota Mexico, contacted separately, said operations continued as normal at its plants in Tijuana and Guanajuato. The Tijuana facility produces about 150,000 units a year and employs 2,000 people.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sought to play down the impact on July 7, telling her morning press conference that Toyota had notified the Ministry of Economy it would transfer part of Tacoma production from Tijuana to the US gradually, with the shift completing by 2030 and the plant's longer-term future still under review. She stressed that Toyota's Guanajuato complex, which directly employs 2,800 people, would continue operating. Sheinbaum rejected any suggestion that the decision was linked to the USMCA review, describing it instead as part of a worldwide restructuring by the company. "What Toyota is telling us is that it's part of their global review... We always seek the best conditions for the workers," she said. She added that the ministry had also secured a new investment exceeding $500mn from another, unnamed, automotive company, with an announcement expected in the coming days.

The move adds to a wider pattern of carmakers reassessing Mexico-based production that has historically relied on duty-free access to the US market, as Trump's tariffs raise the cost of that arrangement.