OTHER VOICES: Primer for new U.S. president, if only he'd listen

By Michael Martinez, Crain News Service

DETROIT – If you ask U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, he just saved thousands of U.S. jobs that big, bad Ford Motor Co. was about to move from Louisville, Ky., to Mexico.

To borrow a line from his debate performances during the recent presidential election: “Wrong.”

If the soon-to-be leader of the free world fancies himself such a champion of the American auto worker, he'd be wise to learn some basic facts about the car-making industry. Maybe his “friend” Bill Ford can help him out. William Clay “Bill” Ford Jr., the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, serves as the auto maker's executive chairman.

For starters, there's a difference between an entire plant and a single line of a relatively small-volume vehicle.

Louisville Assembly was never in danger of closing and moving across the Rio Grande. The car maker did admit, however, that it was looking to move its Lincoln MKC crossover vehicle line to Mexico after the current model completes its product life cycle in 2019.

Ford has been vague on whether Mr. Trump's pressure factored into its decision to keep the MKC at Louisville.

One factor clearly at play was the fact that Ford Escape crossovers, being eyed for a production boost, were suddenly not selling at such a brisk pace. In October, the auto maker took down production for two weeks as sales of the vehicle cooled and inventories piled up.

Keeping the MKC in Kentucky past 2019 is little more than a surface gesture of goodwill by Ford to a Trump administration it has repeatedly said it wants to work with.

If Ford indeed moved the MKC to Mexico in three years, the 4,700 workers at Louisville Assembly would have just made more Escapes.

The number of jobs that would have been lost? Zero.

In fact, the auto maker Mr. Trump was so quick to berate on the campaign trail employs more U.S. workers than any other car company and last year built more vehicles in America than any of its competitors.

Executives at Ford's Glass House already know all this. It'd be nice if those about to enter the White House did, too.

Michael Martinez is a staff reporter for Automotive News, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business. He recently wrote this opinion piece for that magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].