The United States on Friday dismissed reports linking 3,000 job cuts at a Belgian Ford plant to Belgium’s opposition to the war in Iraq, according to Reuters.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Ford Europe is to cut the jobs at its plant in Genk in eastern Belgium amid slumping sales and cut-throat price competition and two newspapers said the decision was linked to Belgium’s opposition to the US-led invasion.
“There is no link whatsoever between these matters. Overseas direct investment decisions are solely the responsibility of the investing companies ” the US embassy said in a statement cited by Reuters.
According to Reuters, Ford denied that “political considerations” had influenced its plans.
The news agency noted that Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt has said that the state security service was alerted in June by “an occasional, non-verifiable, anonymous source” that the Genk plant could become the victim of Belgium’s anti-war stance.
But Verhofstadt said the state security service found “no additional indications for this claim”, Reuters noted.
