Ford Motor Co. in U.S. ‘Forever,’ Despite Trump Claim

DEARBORN, MI — Officials at Ford Motor Co. said Thursday that it isn’t abandoning the United States by moving its small-car production to to a $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico, a move that drew a fresh round of criticism from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign stop in Flint Wednesday.

Trump has singled out Ford in the past, though the Dearborn-based manufacturer isn’t alone in offshore manufacturing, and on Wednesday assailed the three-year plan to completely migrate small-car production out of the United States is an “absolute disgrace.”

“We shouldn’t allow it to happen,” Trump went on. “They’ll make their cars, they’ll employ thousands of people, not from this country, and they’ll sell their cars across the border. When we send our jobs out of Michigan, we’re also sending out tax base.”

Speaking earlier this year about Ford’s announcement that it would expand operations in Mexico, Trump said in a statement that “dishonest politicians and the special interests that control them are laughing in the face of all American citizens.”

“These ridiculous, job-crushing transactions will not happen when I am president,” he said.

On Fox News Thursday, Trump said Ford would “fire all of their employees in the United States.”

“When that car comes back across the border into our country that now comes in free, we’re going to charge them a 35 percent tax,” he said. “And you know what’s going to happen? They’re never going to leave.”

Ford on Thursday fired back, saying the automaker has no plans to close up shop in Michigan.

“Ford has been in the United States for more than 100 years,” Ford spokeswoman Christin Baker said in an emailed statement to The Detroit News. “Our home is here. We will be here forever.”

The only small cars manufactured by Ford in the United States are made at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne. Production there will end in 2018.

Trump isn’t alone in criticizing Ford’s plans. United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams has called the plan “very troubling.”

“There is no reason, mathematically, to go ahead and run to countries like Mexico, Thailand and Taiwan, Williams said earlier this year. "We all recognize there is a huge problem in Mexico. So we have to address it as a nation. The UAW cannot do it alone. We are not naive."