Donald Trump's Attack 'New Low' in Politics: Ford Motor Co. Chief

DETROIT, MI – Ford Motor Co. scion Bill Ford Jr. on Monday said the company his great-grandfather founded in 1903 to mass produce the nation’s first automobiles is “about as American as you can get,” defending the automaker against a barrage of attacks by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has singled Ford out for building some of its cars in Mexico.

“In my mind, Ford ought to be the company that’s being held up as a real success story,” Ford, the executive chairman of Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co. told reporters Monday after speaking at an entrepreneurs’ conference in Detroit.

“We didn’t take the bailout, we paid back our debts, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps,” Ford said, according to a report in The Detroit News. “We’re investing in America. We’re exporting out of America. And so, I think we have a great story to tell.”

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He added that he doesn’t think Trump’s attacks — which Ford said point to national political discourse that has “reached a new low” — have dulled the chrome on the automaker’s image.

‘I Protect the Car Industry’

Trump expects to do well in Michigan, where he easily won the March 8 Republican presidential primary, and has said that he is popular in Rust Belt states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin “because I protect the car industry.”

In April, he said Ford’s announcement of a plan to build a new $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico, where the automaker has had operations for nearly a century, was “an absolute disgrace.”

“These ridiculous, job crushing transactions will not happen when I am president,” he said in a statement released by his campaign.

Ford Motor Co. isn’t the only automaker with offshore production, but Trump has singled out the company with threats of punitive tariffs.

If Ford doesn’t acquiesce to his demand that he bring production back to the United States, the tariff would increase to 40 percent, Trump said at the rally.

Trump has been critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact passed during President Bill Clinton’s administration that covers the United States, Mexico and Canada, and other agreements he says cost U.S. workers jobs by sending them to countries with cheap labor.

See Also

• Ford Invests $1.6B in Michigan, Ohio Manufacturing Plants
• Ford Announces Sweeping Plan to Transform Dearborn Campus
• Donald Trump Thumps Ford Over $1.6B Assembly Plant in Mexico

Until recently, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA, which may have cost her votes and contributed to her narrow Michigan primary loss to rival Bernie Sanders.

Ford Outproduces Competitors in U.S.

Bill Ford defended NAFTA, saying that it has allowed the automaker to “build our business on both sides of the border.”

Other Ford executives previously reacted sharply to Trump’s attacks, saying that singling out Ford Motor Co. is unfair because it built 80 percent of its North American cars and trucks in the United States, more than any of its competitors.

Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s President of the Americas, said in April that the automaker is continuing to invest in the United States, and that “investments in Mexico “are not having an offsetting effect in the U.S.” or costing jobs the Michigan Assembly Plant or in southeast Michigan.

"We have to make decisions on a global scale because we compete globally," he said. "But let’s be clear: We are a proud American company and the majority of our investment happens here in the U.S.”

Image credit: William Clay Ford Jr. via Ford Motor Co.