Donald Trump has asked Ford to part ways with its Chinese partners. The request comes directly from the U.S. administration. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, sent a letter to Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, demanding that he sever ties with the Chinese manufacturer Geely, thereby targeting Ford’s Valencia plant and an agreement signed before the summer, as well as the battery supplier CATL. All of this, for national security reasons.
The Ford plant in Almussafes, near Valencia, is now at the center of a new confrontation between the U.S. government and Ford.
For Trump, Ford is not a “reliable partner”
The U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, wrote a letter to Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, to criticize the use of CATL technology for its batteries and the joint venture formed with the Chinese manufacturer Geely in Spain.
According to the letter, the agreement “helps strategic adversaries solidify a foothold in Western markets,” and a company that “increases its dependence on strategic rivals ceases to be a reliable partner.”
Ford Kuga, the model Ford currently builds in Almussafes.
The agreement, sealed in July, grants 66% of the plant to Ford and 34% to Geely. The Chinese manufacturer will produce low-emission electric vehicles there, while Ford retains the portion of the plant intended for, among other things, the European Bronco and a new model.
For Almussafes, whose capacity exceeds 400,000 vehicles per year but which produced only about 90,000 in 2025, the deal represented the first good news after years of reduced activity and prolonged layoffs under the Red scheme.
This industrial breather, celebrated by the Valencian Generalitat and the government of Pedro Sánchez as a strong signal for the plant’s future, now clashes with Washington’s geopolitical agenda.
For the Trump administration, China remains a “strategic adversary,” and any transfer of technology to Geely constitutes a risk, even when it concerns a European plant largely owned by an American manufacturer.
The letter from Duffy comes just weeks after a visit to Almussafes by Jim Baumbick, president of Ford Europe, who came to reassure the unions about the plant’s future on the eve of its 50th anniversary in October. The factory, which gave birth to the Fiesta in 1976 and still employs more than 4,000 workers, has been living for months in the uncertainty of a multi-energy model promised for mid-2027.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has not announced any sanctions or formal intervention so far. But in a context of tensions already tense between Washington and Madrid, both on NATO matters and in other diplomatic dossiers, the letter functions as a full-blown political warning.
Trump has intensified his criticisms of the Spanish government in recent months, even publicly proposing the isolation of Spain within the Atlantic Alliance. Ford, for its part, has responded that the criticisms contain factual errors and has defended the industrial relevance of the alliance with Geely.
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