Look how fast ford flipped when Trump called them out. Didn't take them more than a month to reverse their Mexican plant plans. The very fact that they even mentioned it had nothing to do with him leads me to believe the opposite. Why mention it at all?
I don't know. But, this investment is for a heavily automated plant. It won't really help the working class. IMO Trump is just lowering taxes so companies will automate within the borders of the US.
Oh, I don't disagree with its limited effect on job creation and retention. You can't really fight automation, you can only adapt to it. But I do not think he plans on lowering corporate tax as he plans on raising tariffs on US companies doing business off of US soil in order to profit more. The only real way to create a lot of minimum to medium skill jobs in the US is severely ramp up infrastructure re-building/repair and to increase actual physical production in factories for more things than autos and auto parts. The biggest problem with the US is it became too expensive to pay people what is required in the US to maintain our standard of living as well as turn a healthy profit for investors.
There's no way that this wasn't in the works for over a year.