Trump Threatens Ford Yet Again

Ford Kentucky Truck Plant (Credit: Ford)

Trump has a real bone to pick with Ford. We’ve reported before that the Donald has railed against the Blue Oval at political rallies before, all because of its operations in Mexico. Well it’s happening yet again.

The Detroit Free Press covered a gathering the Detroit area, where Trump sought to energize his supporters. He did just that by comparing Mexico to China, saying that good American automotive jobs were heading south of the border.

Instead of sticking to his usual set of threats toward Ford, this time Trump declared he was “100-percent sure” he could halt all of Ford’s efforts to grow its manufacturing presence in Mexico. That’s a tall order, but the man seems to think it won’t be too difficult for him to accomplish once he’s in the White House.

In the past, Trump has specified that he would slap big taxes on any Ford vehicles assembled south of the border. The threat of a 35-percent tax on each car would be enough to severely cripple the automaker’s operations in the country. There’s some question about if any president could legally slap those kinds of penalties on Ford or any other company, thanks to NAFTA.

Back in the fall, Trump tried to take credit for Ford moving production of the F-650 and F-750 to the Ohio Assembly Plant. It’s been validated that the change was actually part of an agreement with UAW back in 2011.

Ford isn’t happy about this latest attack, and understandably so. The company keeps emphasizing that it’s based in the United States and has quite a bit invested here. It currently employs about 80,000 Americans and exports vehicles from the U.S. to other countries.

Worth noting is the fact that Ford is far from the only automaker that has robust operations in Mexico. For example, General Motors has several facilities in the country and announced at the end of 2014 it was ramping up to double its production capacity in Mexico, yet Trump hasn’t made threats toward it.