Trump claims to save auto plant that wasn’t closing

In letting Mr Trump claim a victory, Ford made what appeared to be a calculated, public appeal to the next president in an attempt to soothe concerns about outsourcing jobs and to gain some leverage with the new administration as the automaker pushes for favorable policy changes in Congress.

If anything, Ford’s original plans to move the Lincoln SUV’s production would have been better for that plant’s employees: According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the plant sometimes shuts down for a few weeks when demand for the cars it produces is low, so that the supply can match that demand.

Taking credit when it is not due to him seems to be a pattern for Trump, especially concerning Ford. Shanks said that they would be able to “build a stronger, more vibrant, growing economy and provide an environment, where it makes economic sense to build back up manufacturing jobs here”. He also has threatened to impose a 35% tariff on cars and trucks shipped into the USA from Mexico. During his presidential campaign, the Republican candidate also said that if elected he would not allow Ford to open a new plant in Mexico and would slap hefty tariffs on any Ford vehicles made there.

Trump didn’t save American jobs, but he hints that he did.

In two tweets sent out around 9 p.m. Thursday night, Trump said that Ford Motor chairman Bill Ford had told him the company would not be moving one of its Kentucky plants to Mexico. The article was fake; Ford continued building the factory in Mexico and has no facility in Youngstown. It did decide not to shift production of the small volume Lincoln MKC to Mexico though. The idea was to free assembly-line space to make more Ford Escapes, which are made on the same line as the MKC.

Ford spokeswoman Christin Baker said Ford’s plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico, was the “likely” location for the MKC in 2019.

Neither Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, the plant that produces Lincoln Navigator, nor the company’s Louisville Assembly Plant, which manufactures the Ford Escape and the Lincoln MKC will be moved to Mexico.

“It is becoming increasingly unclear that what Trump does or doesn’t do is, thanks to fake news, completely untethered from the real world in a way that makes Fox News treatment of the Bush administration look quaint and harmless by comparison”. They’re going to Mexico. They’re going to many other countries.

“So Ford is leaving”.

Ford did announce plans to move a different line of production – small cars, including the Ford Focus – from MI to Mexico.

Perhaps out of deference to the president-elect, Ford announced shortly after Trump’s tweets that it would keep MKC production in Louisville.

Correction: Statements mistakenly attributed to the Ford Motor Company were removed from this article.

Trump and his supporters contend the Mexican jobs could have been added in the USA if Ford built a new factory here instead of in Mexico.

As a presidential candidate, Trump proposed a 35% tariff on vehicles or other products built overseas and imported by the U.S. by companies like Ford.

As for jobs fleeing the USA, the US auto industry has actually added 300,000 jobs since June 2009, when the recession ended.

Whatever it was, apparently that’s what the Trump presidency is all about too.

Swiecki suggested another factor: the auto industry’s softening sales growth.