Ford Joins Growing List Of Companies Rebuking Trump's Immigration Order

DEARBORN, MI — Ford Motor Co.’s two top executives strongly criticized President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban, saying in a joint statement Monday that it goes against the company’s core values. The travel ban, announced Friday, affects immigrants and refugees from seven primarily Muslim countries.

“Respect for all people is a core value of Ford Motor Company, and we are proud of the rich diversity of our company here at home and around the world,” Ford CEO Mark Fields and Chairman Bill Ford said in the statement. “That is why we do not support this policy or any other that goes against our values as a company.”

The two executives said they’re unsure if any of Ford’s workers would be affected by Trump’s “extreme vetting” measures. The countries affected include Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

“We will continue working to ensure the well-being of our employees by promoting the values of respect and inclusion in the workplace,” they said.

The travel ban sparked protests at international airports around the country over the weekend, including demonstrations at Detroit Metro Airport and in Dearborn, where Ford is headquartered. About 40 percent of the city’s nearly 95,000 residents are Arab-American.

Ford is the latest large company — and the largest manufacturer to date — to decry the travel ban, which Trump has said is intended to stop radical Islamic terrorists from entering the country.

Ford’s crosstown rivals, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, declined comment on the new president's executive order, The Detroit News reported.

Several technology companies, including Apple, have rebuked Trump’s travel ban. Apple’s co-founder, the late Steve Jobs, was the biological son of a Syrian refugee, the Financial Times reported.

In a memo to the Apple staff obtained by the Financial Times, chief executive Tim Cook said the company not only doesn’t support Trump’s extreme vetting measures, but it also “reached out to the White House to explain the negative effect on our co-workers and our company.”

“Apple is open. Open to everyone, no matter where they come from, which language they speak, who they love or how they worship,” Cook wrote.

Alphabet, Facebook, Netflix, Lyft and others have also criticized the ban.

It’s also having reverberations on Wall Street. In a transcript of a voicemail message obtained by Reuters, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein told employees that “this is not a policy we support.”

The Dearborn automaker and Trump have had a tenuous relationship. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly singled out Ford for a 35 percent tariff on parts and automobiles manufactured in Mexico and imported to the United States. Earlier this month, Ford canceled plans to invest $1.6 billion in a plant in Mexico and said it would instead put $700 million into expansion of its Flat Rock, Michigan, plant.

Fields said when the plans were announced that the decision was based on the need to create a “more positive manufacturing environment” in the United States under Trump’s leadership but stopped short of saying the deal was negotiated with Trump.

Detroit’s Big Three automakers are quietly weighing how their business models might be affected by Trump’s proposal for a 20 percent tariff on goods imported from Mexico to pay for the border wall, which is estimated to cost $15 billion. Trump proposed the tariff after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said his country will not pay for the wall and canceled a meeting between the two leaders that had been scheduled for this week.

Photo via Ford Motor Co.