Commerce Secretary Goodrich Leads the First Braun-Era Trade Trip to Japan

Indiana Secretary of Commerce Chuck Goodrich left this week for Tokyo and Nagoya to meet with executives from Subaru, Toyota, and Honda, all three of which run large assembly plants in Indiana, along with Toyota's Tier 1 suppliers Aisin Corp, Toyota Industries Corp, and Toyota Tsusho, and the Japanese facilities of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly. It is the first foreign trade mission of Governor Mike Braun's administration; predecessor Eric Holcomb made 27 such trips over eight years. The roughly $25,000 trip is funded mostly by the Indiana Economic Development Foundation.

The OEM meetings get the headline, but new capacity decisions tend to start at the Tier 1 level Goodrich is visiting in Nagoya. Toyota's Princeton plant is absorbing a $200 million Grand Highlander expansion as part of a $10 billion five-year U.S. commitment, and Honda's Greensburg plant is taking on all Accord production redirected from Ohio. Both outcomes depend on relationships with suppliers like Aisin and Toyota Tsusho, while Ohio and Kentucky work the same Japanese OEMs for their own investment dollars. State Sen. Fady Qaddoura continues to raise a conflict-of-interest question about Goodrich remaining CEO of Gaylor Electric, whose 2025 revenue reached $859.7 million, up 97 percent since fiscal year 2023.