Judging from a couple of Twitter messages by President-elect Donald J. Trump, he had scored a hard-won victory for American autoworkers by persuading Ford Motor to keep a Lincoln plant in Louisville, Ky., rather than move it to Mexico.
The reality proved less straightforward.
Ford had never said it was moving a plant to Mexico, only that it was transferring the production of a small Lincoln sport utility vehicle there so it could fully dedicate a Louisville plant to a larger-selling model.
That decision has now been reversed — but either way, it will have no impact on jobs at the factory. The plant is already operating virtually around the clock at full capacity.
The decision, which Ford Motor said it made before Mr. Trump spoke by phone on Thursday with William Clay Ford Jr., the company’s executive chairman, will simply keep the current product mix in place at the factory.
The Louisville plant will continue making a far larger number of Ford Escapes, a small S.U.V. that is a less luxurious vehicle than the Lincoln model, the MKC.
Ford, which during the election campaign was a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s criticism for moving jobs to Mexico, was no doubt waving a political olive branch by deciding to keep Lincoln MKC production in Kentucky. But the move was largely symbolic.
And that Mr. Trump seemingly overstated its impact — if it proves emblematic of his future dealings with the industry — could indicate that his promises to save and restore auto jobs may not require significant changes on the part of carmakers.
Mr. Trump’s vows to protect manufacturing jobs in the United States helped him win the support of working-class voters, including many factory workers in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. He sought to underscore the message in his Twitter dispatches on Thursday night.
“Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky — no Mexico,” Mr. Trump wrote in a message.
In a subsequent post, he wrote: “I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!”
Both posts overstated certain issues.
Read more of the original article at The New York Times.
