Titan International, Inc., which makes and markets Goodyear-brand farm tires, has issued a statement in response to President Donald Trump’s call to boycott Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which sold its farm tire business to Titan in 2006.
“Wednesday morning, we learned of the news being shared about Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s reported diversity training and felt it was important to make clear that Titan is in no way connected to the training in question,” says Titan CEO Paul Reitz. “While Titan has licensing rights to design, produce and sell the Goodyear farm tires brand, we are an entirely separate publicly held entity under separate management and have no shared staff or facilities with Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.”
"Titan has long-been a champion of American manufacturing and has invested heavily in legal action to protect American manufacturing jobs," say Titan officials. "In this respect, President Trump and Titan are well-aligned in protecting the more than 2,100 hard-working Americans employed by Titan in multiple manufacturing facilities across Illinois, Iowa, Ohio and Tennessee, who proudly build Goodyear farm tires, along with Titan wheels and Titan tires.”
“Titan has a diverse workforce throughout all of our locations in the U.S. that build some of the world’s best agriculture, construction, and forestry wheels and tires,” Reitz continues. “While at work, we believe our employees should be focused on operating safely and manufacturing high-quality products, and therefore employees are allowed to wear what they would like as long as it meets safety standards and isn’t offensive.
"Our employees take tremendous pride in our products and we welcome any politician, customer, farmer, construction operator, or just curious folks that would like to see how we operate and meet the fine men and women that we employ. In addition to Titan’s 2,100 hard-working employees across the United States, Titan and Goodyear farm tires are sold at nearly 2,000 local tire dealers across the country. And a misguided movement to cancel Goodyear farm tires — manufactured and sold by a completely separate company from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. — could adversely affect thousands of additional hard-working family-owned tire businesses across the country.”
Click here to read MTD's report about the Trump-Goodyear controversy, which erupted when a slide that was shown during a meeting at Goodyear's commercial/OTR tire plant in Topeka, Kan., was shared with a news outlet and went viral.
