Ford Motor announced Tuesday that it would cancel plans for a $1.6 billion Mexico plant and launch a Michigan expansion in a move that may be viewed as a capitulation to Donald Trump.
Ford CEO Mark Fields said the company would spend $700 million and add 700 jobs to "transform and expand" its Flat Rock, Mich. manufacturing plant to make autonomous and electric vehicles.
"Make no mistake about it ‐ Ford is a global automaker but our home is right here in the United States," Fields said at a press conference.
This is an interesting development, mostly for the people of Michigan. A 700 job expansion is nothing to sneeze at and with technology increasingly moving in the direction of autonomous vehicles, this will keep them in a growing market. But it’s also something that will be of great interest to the President as we head into the next election cycle. After only narrowly carrying the state in 2016 with a plurality, beating Clinton by barely half a point, his approval ratings have been underwater there by as much as 15 points recently.
| Update at 10:10 a.m. from the source link: |