President-elect Donald Trump made restoring America’s manufacturing economy a major part of his presidential platform. | AP Photo Trump takes credit for keeping Ford plant in U.S. that wasn't leaving

Donald Trump bragged Thursday night that the chairman of Ford Motor Company called him personally to inform him that the auto maker would be keeping one of its plants in Kentucky instead of moving it to Mexico.

“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,” the president-elect wrote on Twitter.


“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!” he added in a subsequent post.

A spokeswoman for Ford confirmed that the company’s chairman had called Trump to inform him that the Lincoln plant would remain in Kentucky. She said “we are encouraged that President-elect Trump and the new Congress will pursue policies that will improve U.S. competitiveness and make it possible to keep production of this vehicle here in the United States.”

The problem with Trump’s claim, according to a report from Reuters, is that Ford was never planning to move the facility in question to Mexico. In fact, Ford has regularly reiterated that it has no plans to close any of its U.S. manufacturing locations, something that would likely be impossible under the terms of its current contract with the United Auto Workers.

According to Bloomberg, Ford was planning on moving production of the MKC model possibly to Mexico in 2019 after its contract with the union expires.

The Manhattan billionaire made restoring America’s manufacturing economy a major part of his presidential platform, pledging to institute tariffs on the products of companies who move jobs abroad. In his stump speeches, Trump would regularly cite an unnamed factory-building friend of his who described Mexican manufacturing plants as “the eighth wonder of the world.”