Report: Foxconn CEO Gou visiting the White House to discuss Wisconsin facility

MADISON - Foxconn chairman and CEO Terry Gou is visiting the White House this week to potentially discuss a manufacturing facility the Taiwanese tech giant is building in southeastern Wisconsin, a new report says.

The visit comes just days after President Donald Trump visited the Green Bay area to lay out his case for a second term as president that included no mention of the Foxconn facility — a project he says he helped engineer and once predicted it would be the "eighth wonder of the world."

Reuters reported Tuesday it's unclear whether Gou will be meeting with the president but that the visit is related to his "Wisconsin investment."

Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday he did not have plans to meet or talk with Gou while he is in the U.S. He said he presumed Gou and Trump would be talking about the Wisconsin plans but joked they might be trading campaign tips because Gou is running for president of Taiwan. 

"I have no idea what they're talking about," Evers told reporters after a question-and-answer session with the Milwaukee Press Club at Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee.

FULL COVERAGE:Foxconn in Wisconsin

A spokesman for the White House did not respond to questions about the visit. Foxconn downplayed the significance of the trip.

"As part of normal business operations, Foxconn regularly engages with its stakeholders in state and federal government," Foxconn officials said in a statement. "However, details of these interactions cannot be disclosed for privacy and commercial in confidence reasons.”

Though Trump didn't mention the Foxconn project, which he personally broke ground on with a golden shovel in Mount Pleasant, his campaign spokeswoman said Saturday the president will work to ensure the company's job creation goals will be met. 

Questions over the project's future are swirling after Evers two weeks ago said he didn't believe the company would create the 13,000 jobs initially promised and wanted to work with Foxconn to rewrite the contract with the state, which makes $3 billion in public subsidies available to the company. Foxconn initiated talks to make the changes, Evers said.

Evers told reporters Tuesday he didn’t have a problem with the meeting. 

“My goal is to continue to have ongoing discussions with the people that are working at Foxconn,” he said. “So for me to necessarily be there today I’d say, no, that’s not that important. We have regular contact with them, with his company and that’s what is important.”

RELATED:Donald Trump wants to work with Tony Evers on getting 13,000 Foxconn jobs, campaign says

Gou plans to take a step back from his daily duties as he runs for president of Taiwan, causing more uncertainty in Wisconsin, where millions of dollars have already been spent preparing land, utilities and roads of Racine County for what was supposed to be a massive technology campus. 

The Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County have together borrowed $350 million to pay for infrastructure, land purchases and other costs related to the Foxconn project. 

Evers said Tuesday he wants to protect taxpayers and local officials who “followed the state’s lead” on the project and made significant investments. 

“I can’t stand here and say I think that Foxconn won’t use all that land,” he said. “I hope they do, but if they don’t, then the state has to work with Racine County and Mount Pleasant and the other townships to find other tenants for that land.”

Evers said he's gaining a “pretty firm” idea of what will happen in the coming years: a smaller plant will be built than what former Gov. Scott Walker and Gou agreed upon in 2017, resulting in fewer employees.

Rick Romell, Alison Dirr and Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Molly Beck in the Capitol bureau at (608) 258-2263 or at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.