00:00 Speaker A
you know, you mentioned uh US production and I got to talk about, you know, things like tariffs and we have USMCA negotiations coming up in July.
00:08 Speaker A
Talk to me about how important, you know, I know important how important is for you for Ford is US production, but also what is that sort of say about, you know, affordability here in the country where we’re talking about tariffs and Americans sort of struggling with, you know, making those payments.
00:24 Speaker B
Well, you know, Ford’s made the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 47 years, the F-150. So we know a lot about affordability, we know a lot about, you know, American customers. Well, I I would say we’re entering a very important period. You know, we did work with the administration to minimize our tariffs, but at some point we had some of the biggest tariff bills even though we make almost all of our vehicles in the US. We make more vehicles than anyone else in the US. We export more than anyone else. We have the most factory workers in the US. So we’re obviously the most American company and to have a big tariff bill didn’t make sense to us. and a lot of it was imported, you know, parts because we have to make our vehicles affordable if we make them in the US. Our labor costs are higher here. One way to offset that is to import parts that are more affordable. Um, we worked with the administration, we found a good outcome, but here we go again with USMCA this summer and fall. hugely important negotiation. We designed the entire industrial system in the US around Mexico and Canada between parts, shipping, powertrains across the border, and this will be very important. Even for Ford, it’s more important than our competitors because they import so much. You know, for Ford, we build almost everything here, so it’s a little bit different for us. What we’re really looking for is to strengthen the local content required. We want more companies to look like Ford, it’s good for our country. and we want affordable parts, and we want to have reasonable uh tariffs on things like aluminum that we put in all of our vehicles. So very important. It’s terms of affordability. We’re going to be launching five or six new affordable vehicles and the first one is transformation transformational. It’ll be our less than $30,000 new electric truck coming out next year. We’re so excited to show America a whole new segment of an affordable electric vehicle that is much lower to lower cost than when what they would buy in a hybrid.