DETROIT — Ford Motor on Thursday announced a $1 billion investment to build a new paint shop at its crucial truck plant in Kentucky.
The announcement comes two days after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy expressed "profound concern" about the automaker's ties to Chinese companies that the Trump administration believed could be detrimental to the Detroit carmaker and U.S. automotive industry.
Ford, which regularly touts its position as the top-producing automaker in the U.S., called the comments a "wrongheaded attempt to capture headlines."
The new paint shop, which is a critical and costly part of a vehicle assembly plant, is expected to the replace the facility's "existing paint shop and further [modernize] one of Ford's most important manufacturing operations," Ford said in a press release Thursday.
The company said it would break ground on the facility later this year. A Ford spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on expected timing for completion of the new facility.