Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan is getting tattered, the more he uses it to preface his accomplishments. In a tweet on Thursday night, Trump wrote that he had “worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky.”
And as New York Magazine writes, Trump seemed to actually preen as he suggested he had “personally worked with Ford to save American jobs.”
For all the Trump devotees out there who take his word as the gospel truth, let’s get the story straight. On September 14, Ford announced it was moving all its small-car production to Mexico as part of the plan to make production simpler and less costly.
As part of the move, Ford had planned on moving production of its Lincoln MKC, a small SUV, to Mexico. but has always intended to keep the Louisville, Kentucky plant open to continue producing the Ford Escape. But falling sales on the Escape gave Ford executives pause to reconsider the move on the Lincoln.
According to the Associated Press, Ford Motor Co. spokeswoman, Christin Baker, said: “We are encouraged that President-elect Trump and the new Congress will pursue policies that will improve U.S. competitiveness and make it possible to keep production of this vehicle [the Lincoln MKC] here in the United States.”
There is no proof that Trump had any influence on Ford’s decision to continue production of the Lincoln MKC in Kentucky because that decision was something that was months in the making. On Tuesday this week, Ford’s chief executive, Mark Fields, said the election has nothing to do with the company’s plans.
So the bottom line is this – Trump did not save any American jobs because there were “zero” lost. There are no assembly plants being closed, nor has that ever been the plan. There never was a plan to move a Kentucky plant to Mexico, and yes, there are two Ford plants in Kentucky. And if you take into account the terms of the United Auto Workers contract that expires in 2019, there is no way jobs could be lost.
But Trump is good at making people believe he is solely responsible for good things that happen. The Guardian reports that back in 2015, he took credit for Ford moving production from Mexico back to Ohio, even though the move had been planned and in the works since 2011.
