The political battle over China’s car industry is heating up, and Ford just got caught in the crossfire.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a scathing letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley this Tuesday, urging him to cut ties with Chinese companies. Duffy expressed “profound concern” at Ford’s strategic direction, and said he was “deeply alarmed” by the automaker’s licensing deal with CATL to make lithium iron phosphate batteries in Michigan.
“When a company intentionally chooses to deepen operational dependencies on strategic competitors, it fails to act as the reliable partner the American public and this DOT require,” the letter reads. Brutal stuff.
Clearly, even American companies aren’t safe from the growing backlash to China’s auto industry. But the Ford spat also exposes just how scattered America’s China-car policy is becoming. Washington seems certain that it wants to disentangle the U.S. auto industry from China—and less sure what that actually means.
[We discuss the Ford situation, Mack's first drive in the Jeep Recon, the Tesla Cybercab hitting streets, and more on this week's Plugged-In Podcast. Check it out!]
