Disappointed Mexican Workers Blame Donald Trump for Ford Plant Closure Peter Orsi - Associated Press
go to original January 10, 2017

Workers Blame Donald Trump for Ford Closure (Associated Press)

Word spread quickly through cellphone messages and shouts between co-workers that Ford Motor Co. had canceled its new $1.6 billion car plant at its sprawling 700-acre high desert site in north-central Mexico.

"When I saw it on the phone, (I thought), 'Well, no, it can't be,'" said Higinio Salazar, a security guard who spent the past five months logging traffic into and out of the site and hoped to have steady work for months to come. "It was on orders of Mr. Trump," he said bitterly.

That was not the case, Ford insists, but the perception here in Mexico's burgeoning auto assembly region was largely that President-elect Donald Trump, who had promised for months to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. while at the same time disparaging Mexicans, had made good before even settling into the White House. Trump took a shot at Toyota on Thursday over its move to make Corollas in this region, though the Japanese company defended its plan.

Ford's announcement sent shockwaves across Mexico, which has become tightly meshed with the U.S. economy since the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement, sending 80 percent of its $532 billion in exports across the border in 2015. The U.S. government says $100 billion of that was in vehicles and parts, making Mexico the biggest exporter of automotive products to the United States. Mexico's auto plants now account for 20 percent of all light vehicles built in North America, industry figures say.

State officials in San Luis Potosi did not find out much earlier than Salazar that plans had been scrapped for the long-awaited plant, which promised 2,800 direct jobs and more than 10,000 indirect ones through Ford's supply chain. State Economic Development Secretary Gustavo Puente Orozco said Ford told state officials about an hour before CEO Mark Fields made the announcement Tuesday.

Puente said Ford made very clear it was a "definitive cancellation," citing supply and demand rather than politics.

Read the rest at News Sentinel

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