Days before a fresh encounter between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the White House has chosen its target in the American automobile sector. This time it isn’t a Chinese manufacturer in the crosshairs, but a Detroit heavyweight accused of leaning too heavily on partners based in Beijing.
The Trump administration has just sent a formal warning to Ford, in a letter from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to CEO Jim Farley. Washington voices a deeply rooted concern about ties with Chinese groups CATL, Geely, and BYD, and orders the automaker to break these industrial collaborations immediately. Behind this hard line between Ford and China, there’s more at stake than a mere commercial disagreement.
What the Trump administration accuses Ford of and its ties with China
In the Tuesday missive, Sean Duffy foregrounds the Marshall battery plant project in Michigan. This forthcoming facility would rely on technology licensed from CATL, a choice that greatly unsettles Washington, given that the Chinese manufacturer appears on a Pentagon list identifying companies with alleged ties to the Chinese military. To the administration, seeing a critical component like a battery depend on a party flagged for military connections poses a national security risk that cannot be ignored any longer.
The letter does not stop there. Duffy also targets Ford’s decision to keep producing the Lincoln Nautilus SUV in China at least through 2030, a stark symbol of the deepening industrial interdependence. And it takes aim at the idea floated by Jim Farley at the Detroit auto show of expanding joint ventures with Chinese partners on U.S. soil. In that regard, the political punch is clear.
The démarche arrives as several officials in Washington push to curb foreign access even more, and as a coalition of major automakers calls for a ban on Chinese-connected connected vehicles in the United States, with no carve-outs whatsoever.
The automaker under Trump’s pressure
In Dearborn, the reaction was swift. Ford issued a sharply worded statement challenging the Transportation Department’s move, deeming it a political ploy aimed at grabbing headlines. The company asserted that the Marshall plant will be wholly owned by Ford, operated by American workers, and run by Ford’s own teams. It also underscored its heavy investments in domestic battery production, while some rivals continue to rely considerably on imported equipment, a detail that says a lot about the image battle being waged.
Reality, however, is catching up with the rhetoric. The global auto supply chains collide headlong with the idea of a clean break from China. Building an entirely domestically produced battery supply chain would take years and require enormous investments. The industry knows this—and not just Ford. Toyota has recently admitted that keeping pace with the technology and cost curves of Asian plants has become essential to stay in the game. By partnering with Geely or even weighing deals with BYD for certain hybrid components, Ford is after scale economies and rapid access to proven technologies, even if it places the company at the center of a highly politicized debate today.
And then there’s Europe, which finds itself indirectly entangled in this U.S. push. The planned industrial agreement with Geely around the Almussafes plant near Valencia should enable Ford to roll out new models for the European market starting in 2028. If the Trump administration succeeds in forcing Ford to fundamentally rethink its Chinese ties, that kind of project could be reconsidered or delayed. For French car buyers, that could translate into redesigned lineups, longer lead times, or pressure on pricing, though no specific figures were given at present.
In the background, the letter to Ford sits within a broader strategy. A few weeks earlier, the White House declared a national emergency aimed at securing the U.S. power system, including energy storage and batteries. The push to curb Chinese partnerships in the automotive sector thus fits a shared logic: minimize the presence of what are deemed sensitive technologies in critical industries. It remains to be seen how far the administration will go in this confrontation and how Ford will adjust its electric-vehicle roadmap amid political demands and real-world constraints.
