Canceled Ford Plant in San Luis Potosi Adds to Country's Economic Frustrations Carrie Kahn - NPR
go to original January 5, 2017

A man walks past a nearly deserted construction site Wednesday in Villa de Reyes, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as workers shut down operations and remove equipment from the site of a canceled $1.6 billion Ford plant. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)

Ford Motor Company's decision this week to cancel construction of an auto plant in Mexico has shocked that country, causing the peso to slump and stirring up outrage toward incoming President Donald Trump. Anger is high toward Trump in the state where the Ford plant was under construction — and was slated to employ nearly 3,000 local workers.



Usually the dusty construction site of the now-shuttered Mexican Ford auto plant is full of activity. Now only one large tractor can be seen grading roads at the 700-acre site, located outside the small town of Villa de Reyes in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

Guards at the site's entrance say that the mood is very tense, and that the situation is deeply discouraging.

"We all thought this was a long term project," says Juan Gonzalez, who had hoped to stay on when the Ford plant opened in three years.

Gustavo Puente Orozco, San Luis Potosi's Secretary of Economic Development, says the news, while not totally unexpected, came as a shock. Donald Trump began putting a lot of pressure on Ford to pull out of Mexico during the campaign, but Puente says Ford officials in Mexico kept assuring him the project was moving forward, and he says that all the construction kept going.

Ford says it was market forces that prompted them to cancel the Mexico plant — small cars, like the Ford Focus that was to be built here, just haven't been selling well, especially with low gas prices.

The scrapped project adds to a rough start to 2017 for Mexicans. Gas prices in the country spiked by as much as 20 percent in some parts of the country on Jan. 1, when the government lifted long-imposed subsidies. The peso dropped by more a full percentage point on the Ford news, and there are fears that inflation is going to rise above 4 percent this year.

Read the rest at NPR

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