Trump Singles Out Ford Automotive For Tax Increase

Trump said he backs government tax incentives to keep auto production in the United States. He said the U.S. shouldn’t open its market to Japanese imports unless it drops trade barriers.

The United States has lost more than 5 million factory jobs since 2000; Michigan has shed more than one-third of its manufacturing jobs since then. In an appeal to blue-collar workers, Trump vows to keep the more than 12 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

“We’ve got to keep (factories) here. It’s not that hard to do,” he said. Without action, he added, “pretty soon all we’re going to have is nursing home jobs.”

Trump has repeatedly said that if elected, he would not allow Ford to open a new plant in Mexico. At his campaign announcement speech in New York in June, Trump said he would call Fields to explain the “bad news.”

“Let me give you the bad news: Every car, every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35 percent tax,” Trump said. “They are going to take away thousands of jobs.”

Ford confirmed that Fields sent Trump an email the day after his announcement speech. Spokesman Karl Henkel said: “Mark sent Mr. Trump an email with information about Ford, including the $6.2 billion we have invested in our U.S. plants since 2011 and our hiring of nearly 25,000 U.S. employees. Mr. Trump thanked us for the information and said that Ford is a great company and that he is a Ford customer. We appreciate his kind words.”

Trump said Fields’ email didn’t change his views about the expansion. He called it a “very, very nice letter,” but said it didn’t justify “how it is going to be good for the United States, because that cannot be justified.”

Reality

There is no legal avenue to single out one company for punitive taxes. The highlights Donald Trump’s lack of familiarity with United States laws.

Links

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2015/08/12/trump-autos/31589899/