Ford Motors has now announced it intends to move all its small car manufacturing lines out of Detroit and the U.S. and into its Mexico-based plants.
In a September 14 statement, Ford CEO Mark Fields insisted that in the “next two to three years, we will have migrated all of our small car production to Mexico and out of the United States.”
Fields added that Ford is investing an additional $4.5 billion to develop electric vehicles by 2020, most of which will be spent in its Mexico facilities. The company also said all emerging small car models will be made south of the border.
The move to shift all production to Mexico should not come as a major surprise, as in April, Ford had already launched a $1.6 billion building plan for enlarging facilities in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
The brand new Mexico facilities were announced just as President Barack Obama’s deputy signed the unpopular Trans Pacific Partnership free-trade deal earlier this year.
In February, Ford Motor Company announced it was set to double production capacity at a previously built Mexico factory, instead of enlarging U.S. factories.
GOP nominee Donald Trump has decried the moves, telling Breitbart News last February that his planned border wall with Mexico has “economic reasons” behind it, as well as the obvious security reasons. “I’ve been telling everybody this from day one: We’re going to have nothing left.”
Trump added:
The steel [production] is going to be there. The cars are going to be there. Mexico is going to be the car capitol of the world. Michigan is being decimated. That’s why I’m doing so well in Michigan — because people say I’m the only one who understands what’s going on. The other candidates have no clue as to what’s going on. I’m talking about it all the time. There’s even a piece of the reason that I like the wall — is for economic reasons. They’re coming over here doing whatever they want to do economically.
Ford is hardly alone in the stampede to foreign nations. Chevy recently debuted its first Chinese-made SUV it intends to import into the U.S. But GM is already importing cars from a list of foreign countries. Buick, for instance, is importing from South Korea, Europe, and Poland, USA Today reports.
Ford is also joining the headlong rush to develop and manufacture driverless cars, and its Mexico facilities will be the locus for that advance, as well.
“We see huge social economic and environmental benefits. We’re focused on usage where miles traveled be,” Fields said. “Autonomous vehicles will account for one of every 10 miles traveled by 2025, and will grow from 5% of all vehicles sold in U.S. in 2025 to 30% in 2030.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.