NEWS

Donald Trump takes credit for the timing of Ford's Mexico announcement

Ford is just one of many automakers that is expanding or building new factories in Mexico

Bill Emkow

Detroit Free Press

Donald Trump took credit for the timing of Ford's announcement to move all small-car production to Mexico over the next two years, a claim that prompted Ford to quickly fire back with a charge that "politics are getting in the way of the facts."

"I think maybe they announced it (yesterday) because they think I'm going to win and I'm going to stop them," he said on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning. "You know, I have a way of stopping them very, very easily."

"I can't believe the brazenness," the Republican presidential candidate said.

The news wasn't surprising, as Ford said in April it would invest $1.6 billion to build a plant in Mexico and create 2,800 jobs so it can build small cars there. Ford also said in 2015 that it planned to move production of its Ford Focus and C-Max hybrids cars from a plant in Wayne, Mich., to another country by 2018.

Ford, in a statement, said: "It’s unfortunate that politics are getting in the way of the facts. We’re very proud to have invested $12 billion in our U.S. plants and created 28,000 U.S. jobs over the last five years. We have more hourly employees in the U.S. than any other automaker, and we produce more vehicles here than anyone."

Later in the day, Ford CEO Mark Fields went on CNN and said there will be no American job losses because of this move.

"Zero," Fields told CNN's Poppy Harlow in an interview from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

In fact, Ford made a commitment last fall to invest $9 billion in U.S. plants and create or retain more than 8,500 jobs as part of a new four-year contract with the UAW. Of that, $4.8 billion goes to 11 facilities in Michigan.

Trump has targeted Ford since the start of his campaign even though nearly all other automakers also have plants in Mexico and are either building new plants or expanding existing plants.

In recent years, automakers that include General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mazda, Toyota and Volkswagen have announced plans to either expand existing plants or build new ones in Mexico. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles also has said it is considering an expansion of its production there.

Trump claimed today he has said for years that automakers would create jobs in other countries.

"This is why I'm doing well in Michigan. This is why I'm doing well in Ohio," Trump said. "States that make cars, they like Donald Trump."

Trump made his first comments on the news while still visiting Flint on Wednesday.

"We shouldn’t allow it to happen. They'll make their cars, they'll employ thousands and thousands of people not from this country, and they'll sell the cars right through a very weak border," Trump said during his visit. "And we'll have nothing but more unemployment in Flint and in Michigan. It's horrible."

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He added, "When we send our jobs out of Michigan, we’re also sending our tax base."

The auto industry has known for decades that domestic manufacturers struggle to make a profit on small cars in the U.S.

Trump explained during the Fox interview the steps that would prevent companies from moving jobs outside the U.S.

"When they make their car and they think they're going to get away with this, and they fire all their employees in the United States and move to Mexico, when that car comes back across the border into our country, that now comes in free, we're going to charge them a 35% tax. You know what's going to happen, they're never going to leave. They'll never leave in a million years. And, if they want to leave, we're going to make a lot of money because they're going to have to pay the tax."