Search icon

News

18th Nov 2016

No, Donald Trump’s election hasn’t saved a bunch of American jobs at Ford

If it sounds too good to be true...

Tom Victor

Donald Trump hasn’t even officially taken over as President yet, but he already claims to be taking big steps to keep American jobs within the United States.

That’s great news for his supporters. Or at least it would be if it were true.

The President-elect claims to have heard from Ford chairman Bill Ford that the car company will be keeping its Lincoln plant in Kentucky, rather than moving it to Mexico.

*a cheer goes up*

But wait, let’s take a closer look. That plant Trump has been speaking about to Ford in an effort to ensure it remains in America? There were never any plans to move it.

As Reuters notes, Trump has been critical of Ford moving smaller car production south of the border, something which is still going to happen.

So, and I’ll say this loudly for those of you at the back, he’s not stopped what he wanted to stop, while the thing he’s proudly announcing is – wait for it – exactly what was going to happen anyway.

In fact, as the non-committal language in Trump’s tweet allows for, it’s possible that all he has done is asked Bill Ford what the current situation is and then left off the bits that might make him look bad. The ‘no Mexico’ line is basically window-dressing as that was never in the equation for the Lincoln SUV plant.

Slate‘s Will Oremus has been doing some fact-checking throughout, including claiming that even Reuters fell for the President-elect’s spin before amending their follow-up story.

And this is corroborated by NYMag‘s Jesse Singal, in this Twitter thread which raises some important questions.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799455529756139521

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799455714796339200

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456037971644416

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456180884082688

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456388078518272

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456603334410240

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456759035338752

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456830711824389

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799456927528919040

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799457039189704704

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/799457073121652737

FFL new