Ford has no plans to come to Youngstown

By Kalea Hall | October 27, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Ford Motor Co. has no plans to come to Youngstown, a company spokesman said.

The rumor of Ford’s opening a plant here spread Sunday night after Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, retweeted a fan’s link to a blog that claimed he persuaded the company to bring a $2 billion plant from Mexico back to the U.S.

The blog, prntly.com, claims “CNN Money” reported Trump’s constant criticism of Ford’s outsourcing jobs to Mexico led the company to change its mind and bring the work to “struggling Youngstown, Ohio.”

Trump tweeted: “Word is that Ford Motor, because of my constant badgering at packed events, is going to cancel their deal to go to Mexico and stay in U.S.”

In 2011, Ford did announce it would move production from a Mexico plant to Avon Lake, Ohio.

“Ford has not spoken with Mr. Trump, nor have we made any changes to our plans,” according to a company news statement Monday. “We decided to move the F-650 and F-750 medium-duty trucks to Ohio Assembly in 2011, long before any candidates announced their intention to run for U.S. president. We are proud that Ford has invested $10.2 billion in our U.S. plants since 2011 and hired nearly 25,000 U.S. employees.”

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who also is a Republican presidential candidate, argued with Trump’s claim he brought jobs to Ohio.

“You don’t win jobs through bombast, yelling or working people over, beating them up,” Kasich said Monday. “You win jobs by having a stable environment and a budget under control and some reasonable tax incentives.

“Bombast doesn’t win jobs, and those who use bombast as a way to get things done rarely carry the day. Those that make a habit of it end up every once in a while getting caught in a situation where they’ve got to kind of take back what they said,” he added.

Kasich said the Ford decision came four years ago.

“He clearly made a mistake,” Kasich said. “He was wrong, trying to say that his bombast is what got Ford here. We decided that in 2011, and we worked very closely with Ford and GM and Honda and Chrysler. It’s hard work. It’s not yelling at somebody across the room, ‘You’re fired!’ or ‘You’re hired!’ I mean, that’s not how you get things done in America, and it’s certainly not how we’ve done things in Ohio.”

Trump’s campaign did not return a request to comment Monday.

Contributor: Marc Kovac, Special to The Vindicator