Ford plans to cancel $1.6B Mexico plant

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - American automotive giant Ford plans to cancel its $1.6 billion investment plan in a new Mexico plant, the company's CEO Mark Fields announced Tuesday.

The U.S.' second-biggest automaker will instead invest $700 million in its home-state Michigan to create 700 new jobs, Fields said.

Ford will continue to produce its "Focus" model in Hermosillo, Mexico; but, with the new investment, the company will manufacture its "Mustang" and "Lincoln Continental" models and its electric vehicles in Flat Rock, Michigan.

After the announcement, the company's stock price in Wall Street rose 3.3 percent, while Mexican peso fell 0.8 percent against the American dollar.

Ford's decision comes after American companies came under scrutiny by the President-elect Donald Trump who had criticized them for manufacturing outside the country, and had promised during his campaign to bring them back in to add jobs to the economy.

Trump criticized the U.S.' biggest automaker General Motors earlier Tuesday.

"General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A. or pay big border tax!," he wrote in his Twitter account.

Since the 1970s, American automakers have increasingly carried their plants to Mexico, South America and Asia for cheaper labor and high profits.

The U.S. state of Michigan, which was once known as the heart of the American auto industry, has been struggling with high level of unemployment and low production ever since.

Michigan's biggest city Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

The state of Michigan has not elected a Republican candidate since George H. W. Bush in 1988 presidential elections, before voting for Republican businessman Donald Trump in November.