Ford President of the Americas Joe Hinrichs said Wednesday that it was “frustrating” reading president-elect Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks on Ford Motor Company relating to its (since-canceled) plans to erect a small-car manufacturing plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
The Detroit News reports that Hinrichs, speaking at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit, said that the discussion lacked key pieces of information that would have made a difference – among them, that Ford was planning on bringing back the Ford Ranger pickup truck and Bronco SUV, with production planned for Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant. The two models are expected to more than make up for the departure of the Ford Focus compact, which will now be shifted to an existing facility in Hermosillo, Mexico.
“One of the things for any of us that would get you frustrated is when the facts get lost in the conversation,” he said. “We thought we had a really good plan… We thought the whole equation worked pretty well, but we got lost in the Twitter world.”
He went on to say that “the UAW was excited” about the future arrival of the Ford Ranger and Bronco models, which the automaker just confirmed publicly earlier this week. “We feel the Ranger and Bronco should be made in America.”
Joe Hinrichs even went so far as to call Ford the “poster child” of keeping up American production, as the company produces “more vehicles in the United States than anybody else.”
“To have us as kind of the focal point of the conversation around [companies] taking production out of the US… That part gets a little frustrating, because you lose sight or perspective of the facts,” said Hinrichs.
Comments
Trump thinking is the old way not todays global market on car production. The car might be built in mexico, but the components come from many small American operated companies. Eliminating these future factories mexico is also eliminating future sales for American small businesses.
Eliminating factories in Mexico is good for American small business es? Can’t you build the car in America and still help small business?