President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday night that after negotiations with Ford’s chairman, the American auto-manufacturer won’t be moving a factory to Mexico.
“Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky – no Mexico,” Trump tweeted. He added, “I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!”
Ford was not able to be reached for comment.
The auto-manufacturer announced Tuesday that they will be moving forward with plans to move small car production from Michigan to Mexico. Ford’s Kentucky plant is home to production of their SuperDuty pickup truck line. During his campaign, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Ford if they moved manufacturing out of the country. This led to a meeting between Bill Ford and Trump in October.
A 2015 auto union contract reportedly required manufacturing to be moved out of Ford’s Kentucky plan in 2019.