When U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of 25 percent on imported automobiles in early April, his reasoning for doing so boiled down to a couple of specific desires – Trump wants to both negotiate new trade deals with other countries, as well as entice companies to move manufacturing operations to the U.S. While The Blue Oval assembles 80 percent of its models sold in that country in the U.S. – more than any other automaker, save for Tesla – it does build a trio of them in Mexico, including the Ford Maverick. Turns out, Ford CEO Jim Farley isn’t ruling out moving some of that production stateside.
In a recent interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Farley was asked a series of questions pertaining to tariffs, which he believes will stick around for at least three years, admitting that “it’s a significant issue for the company,” and adding “we’re doing everything we can to mitigate them.” However, Farley was also asked specifically about whether or not the automaker was considering moving production of certain models – the Ford Maverick, specifically, to the U.S. as well, and his response was rather interesting.
“Look, anything’s on the table – we’re building two new plants in the U.S. as we speak,” Farley said. “The Maverick is our fastest turning vehicle so far, and we’re going to look at everything, as you would expect as a shareholder. As far as when Ford might make decisions on shifting production, Farley responded by saying “when the financial numbers look compelling and we believe the policy is permanent. We make these decisions on a 20-year basis and we’ll have to make that judgement call.”
At the same time, Farley admitted that cost considerations play a major role in these decisions, as one would expect – meaning that the automaker would have to find a way to still be able to sell the Ford Maverick at an affordable price regardless of where it’s built. “But the other thing we have to balance here is really important – affordability,” Farley added. “We can move everything to the U.S. and win as a company – that’s what we are balancing. We are growing with our affordable vehicles like Maverick.”
Comments
” …. if numbers make sense…” meaning, if we can still afford to pay our line employees
$67 an hour, and sell our F-150’s for $33,000 more than they’re worth, this just might work …
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It all depends. Fain would like to grow membership. Ford can come along and say “we have 15,000 new jobs that pay $40 an hour (all inclusive) with a 6 or 7 year ramp up, or 0 jobs that pay $67 an hour. I would not be surprised if they are working out something like that as we speak.
The Maverick is not a “Affordable” truck anymore. They are pushing a line from 5 years ago while the current vehicle is just another overpriced pickup