Opinion: Jobs, globalization and President Trump

Ford Motors was planning to move their plant that was in Kentucky to San Luis Potosi, Mexico. They had told the citizens that soon there would be a plenty of jobs once the facility was done. Everything was going fine until then presidential candidate Donald Trump said “When that [Ford] car comes back across the border into our country that now comes in free and were going charge them a 35% tax, and you know what’s gonna happen? They’re never going to leave.”

Rather than to create jobs here instead of elsewhere, it’s a way of creating fear by suggesting Ford will not make much profit as before. The citizens of San Luis Potosi were anticipating the plant to be built so they could have a source of income to provide for their families, and now that hope and promise Ford told them is gone.

As soon as Ford halted construction, now-President Trump took credit for that by saying that he stopped the moving of Ford’s plant and saved jobs.

When Ford heard Trump’s comments, they responded, “They were canceling plans to build the factory and would rather invest the money in a U.S. factory” and move the plant from the Mexico site to invest in a Michigan plant.

While it does help us by creating more jobs, it hurts the people of Mexico. So the question is did President Trump have something to do with this or did they really just decided it would be “better?” Why spend millions when they are just going to stop construction and invest on another plant? This is sort of a double edge sword: while it helps the U.S. and will provide jobs, it will hurt thousands of people who were awaiting a job.

Globalization is a tricky thing when trying to place plants in other countries in which might pay off. We’ll just have to see how it all unfolds.