Let's get some more on the fall out of how speaking Nancy Pelosi's a trip to Taiwan not just having a political impact, but also an impact on the EV market as well. China's contemporary Amperex Technology Limited. You know, I know it better as c A t L or Cattle is delaying an announcement on this new multibillion dollar battery plant in North America joining us now to discuss
this more. Eric Martin, Bloomberg Trade and Economy reporter, Eric, we don't have any official comment from Cattle, but how confident can we be of linking these two events? Well, Uh, Doug and Paul, thank you for having me on. We were very confident about this. We've spoken to people familiar with this, UH, and they have told us that this is a move that the announcement of a plant of as much as five billion dollars in investment by Cattle in North America, either in the US, in Mexico or
split between the two. That this is an announcement that they have decided to push back because of the current dynamic. And you can understand how this would be such a sensitive issue for a Chinese company to be looking at making such a significant investment in North America. Given the Chinese government's reaction to Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taipei, I'm curious, Eric, do you think this raises the probability that the company may select a location in Mexico rather than in the US.
We don't have indications of that thus far. One of the keys of ermanance here is the recently announced deal between Senator Mansion and Senator Schumer, and Cattle is weighing the need to be in North America overall. We know that at some point they have been also scouting sites, uh considering sites even in Canada, but that they've really narrowed it down to looking at on the Mexican side South TiO in the city as well as Guarez on the border with Texas, as well as sites in the US.
But they're incorporating the impact of the package that's been brokered between Senators Schumer and Mansion because that will require
electric electric electronics. It's gonna be electric vehicle makers to source a portion of their batter early battery minerals from North America and have it be processed in a country that has a free trade agreement with the U S which North America, both in terms of logistically the ease of exporting across the border to the US, as well as meaning that free trade agreement criteria are too important criteria for cattle to consider now with what looks like
the potential passage of the Mansion Schumer agreement. So what's the impact of this decision, of this delay you're going to be on t V manufacturers in the US. It's not totally clear at this point. You know, if it is a delay until September October, which is what we've been hearing from sources is the most likely outcome, then you're talking about several weeks or perhaps a couple of months of impact. But these are plants to take a while to build. They need several years to to construct.
And we know that Tesla is ramping up production in the US. So if you're a company that's going to be looking to supply Tesla to supply forth as cattle is um you want this plant to be, you know, shovel in the ground yesterday. And so any delay at this point raises uh, you know, speculation and concern about the ability to proceed as fast as the company would want to proceed. Well, we're talking about the production of
these e V batteries. I'm curious when it comes to the workforce, is this technologically sophisticated type work um it is, But Mexico has has shown a you know, a significant um ability and prowess in manufacturing in the last you know, in the last number of years in both Southdeo and waters They're both places they have seen a lot of manufacturing assembly and have grown significantly in in recent decades.
And you know, really what they're looking for there is a manufacturing workforce that is both talented and trained and knowledgeable, but also has a wage advantage to the US and to have that assembly in Mexico and export to the US for incorporation in the vehicles assembled in the US. You mentioned a moment ago, the lead times to get these plants up and running, the lead times for e
V manufacturers as well to ramp up production. But when you look at this decision, China's obviously found a leva here that it can pull whenever it's displeased with something the US has done. How likely is it that there could be further delays? What sort of uncertainty does this create?
I think that's very hard to say at this point, Uh, you know, this is such a new factor in the relationship between China and the US, and speaker Polo sees visit announced just in recent days, reported in recent days, even on shore, and you know, not on her original itinerary for the Asia trip at all. So I think it's very you know, very fresh, and very hard to analyze now the long term impact of this, But we certainly saw an impact from investors and what they're looking
at in the market today. We saw Tesla shares paired a an intra day high of as much as almost four percent to close up just one percent and four that fell into red territory negative territory after gaining mid day. So we're seeing in the stock market an immediate reaction from investors, not even in cattle, but in in the companies that cattle is going to be supplying, trying to figure out at the margin what this postponed and pushed back announcement means. Good stuff, Eric, thank you so much
for being with us and sharing your reporting. Eric Martin there he is Bloomberg's Trade and Economy reporter, joining us on the story of the delay in an announcement from Cattle on its new billion dollar battery plant in North America.