Ford CEO Does an About-Face After Speaking with Trump

In one of his boldest moves as President-Elect yet, Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he was able to convince Ford Motor Co. to halt its plans to move production of the company’s Lincoln MKC to Mexico. While the news came as a relief to the United Auto Workers, the union was disturbed by what appeared to be indications that Ford was planning to relocate a good chunk of its entire Kentucky production south of the border before Trump intervened:

“I’ll let each individual reach their own conclusions, but the true answer should be clear to anyone,” Dunn said in an interview. “What is important is the transparency between Ford Motor Co. and the UAW. We’re doing a good job and that wasn’t decided in an overnight tweet.”

Ford didn’t inform the union of its long-term plans for the MKC before those tweets went out Thursday night, Dunn said. That’s what UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, who oversees Ford contract negotiations, and other union leaders were planning to discuss with the company today, he said. Settles and Ford manufacturing chief Bruce Hettle sent a letter to Louisville plant workers Friday promising to meet with them “in the coming days” to discuss the change in plans on the MKC.

Talks With Trump

After Trump’s tweets, the company acknowledged for the first time it had been considering moving production of the MKC to Mexico, allowing the plant to boost output of the Escape, one of its hottest models. After talks between Executive Chairman Bill Ford and the president-elect, the automaker decided to keep building the MKC in Louisville after the UAW’s current contract expires in 2019.

“We had planned to move the Lincoln MKC out of Louisville Assembly Plant,” Christin Baker, a Ford spokeswoman, said in an e-mail, noting the UAW contract signed last year allowed for such a move. “Cuautitlan plant in Mexico was likely the plant for MKC.”

Source: Bloomberg