Ever since President Donald Trump opted to impose 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles back in early April, Ford has been reminding us that it builds the vast majority of its vehicles sold in the U.S. domestically – 80 percent, in fact. With the exception of just four models – three of which are assembled in Mexico, and one in China – the rest of the current U.S. Ford lineup is indeed produced in America, meaning that The Blue Oval is impacted less by these tariffs than all but one of its rivals – Tesla. Now, a new Ford ad is throwing a bit of shade at the rest of its competition.
This new ad – dubbed “If They Were Like Us” – features some of the automaker’s factory workers, who are delivering a rather simple message. If all other carmakers operating in the U.S. opted to assemble 80 percent of their own vehicles domestically, it would result in the erection of 15 new plants building more than four million vehicles annually – “if they were like us and and would have said no to the taxpayer bailout and added thousands of American jobs,” Ford adds in a rather cheeky way.
Tariffs have thus far prompted FoMoCo to raise the prices of its three Mexican-built models – the Ford Maverick, Ford Bronco Sport, and Ford Mustang Mach-E, but not the China-based Lincoln Nautilus, though the automaker also noted that it’s absorbing some of those costs as well. CEO Jim Farley did say that the company would at least consider moving some of that foreign production to the U.S., but only if the numbers make sense.
At the same time, Farley also noted that tariffs provide Ford with a big advantage given its large domestic production footprint. “I mean, how exciting is it to go from being criticized for our U.S. plants – in every investor meeting I had, [hearing] why do you make so much in the U.S., why don’t you localize overseas, why don’t you do more of what your competitors do? – to actually be advantaged because we’re building an American car company and always have,” Farley said.
Comments
C’mon, Ford didn’t take TARP funds during the crisis, but they did take money from the Export-Import Bank, DOE… so they kinda were like the other OEMs
Ford would have been bankrupt if GM and Chrysler did not get bailed out because the supply base would have been pulled down too. There was a similar ad aired around 2010 where a customer said they would not buy a vehicle from a bailed out company and Ford chairman Alan Mulally had it yanked because it was so tacky.
Many will say “if they were like us, they’d also have a recall a day”. Ford is asking for it…
what happened to ads that showed us what the car can do rather than all this crap
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Come on Ford, the bailout was 16 years ago- build a bridge and get over it. And I’m sure the tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs and the dozens of cities that were economically destroyed due to plant closing during that time would want more companies to “be like us”
If they were like us, they would use competitors engines in future models.
LOL..That commercial is awesome!
They should have done it a long time ago. Just a little poke at GM (Government Motors)
it would result in the erection of 15 new inches!!! Yeah Right!!