Ford CEO Jim Farley raised an alarm about Chinese automakers entering the US.
In an interview with “Fox & Friends” released on Monday, Farley said that the Chinese automobile sector was powerful, with “enough capacity in China to cover all the manufacturing, all the vehicle sales in the United States.”
“We should not let them into our country because of the economic impact,” he added. “Manufacturing’s the heart and soul of our country, and for us to lose that to those exports would be devastating for our country.”
Farley also talked about the cybersecurity and privacy risks posed by Chinese vehicles.
“All the vehicles have 10 cameras, you know, they can collect a lot of data,” he added. “And there’s no way this is a fair fight.”
Farley has talked about Chinese competitors several times in recent years, emphasizing the robustness of their offerings. Chinese carmakers like BYD, Geely, and Nio are making inroads into foreign markets like Europe, South America, and Canada.
In 2024, Farley said in a podcast interview that he had been driving a Xiaomi SU7 EV for the past six months and did not want to give it up.
In June, he said that watching the ascent of the Chinese EV industry was “the most humbling thing” he had ever seen. He said they were “far superior” to EVs in the West.
He reiterated that point in September as well, saying that Chinese players face “no real competition from Tesla, GM, or Ford” because of the strength of their products.
And in January, Ford unveiled the car engine it supplied to Red Bull’s F1 team. After the launch, Farley said to Bloomberg that designing the F1 engine taught him a lot about how to improve the software in his cars — a must for beating Chinese carmakers.
Chinese EVs are not allowed into the US, primarily due to the Biden-era 100% tariffs imposed on them. During the US-China trade war last year, the figure rose to almost 250%.
