The Trump administration has told Ford that its dealings with three Chinese companies make it an unreliable partner, in a letter from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy that Ford dismissed within hours as a publicity exercise contradicted by the administration’s own commerce secretary.
The two-page letter, dated September 3 and released to the press on Tuesday, singles out Ford’s licence of CATL battery technology at its Marshall, Michigan plant, its joint venture with Geely in Spain, its talks with BYD on hybrid components and its plan to keep building the Lincoln Nautilus in China until 2030.
Together, Duffy wrote, they “paint a troubling picture of a foundational American brand actively intertwining its future with Chinese state-backed enterprises.”
Ford’s reply called the letter “a wrongheaded attempt to capture headlines” and said the company would have briefed Duffy had he asked before going to the press.
It described itself as the most American carmaker by vehicles built, hourly workers employed and vehicles exported from the US, and pointed out that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had praised its Lincoln reshoring plan a month earlier as evidence of manufacturers “bringing their manufacturing home.”
The letter proposes no sanction.
It asks Farley to reflect on the department’s concerns and adopt strategies that favour American workers and allied supply chains.
The Transportation Department has no direct power to dictate a carmaker’s sourcing, its levers being vehicle safety, recalls and the connected-vehicle rules, which is one reason Ford treated the letter as political rather than regulatory.
President Trump is due to meet Xi Jinping later this month.
The Charges
Duffy’s sharpest language is reserved for Marshall.
The department, he wrote, “remains deeply alarmed” by Ford’s reliance on licensed CATL technology at a plant that has begun assembling lithium iron phosphate cells, and considers the use of “imported Chinese technical expertise and operational know-how, even in a scaled-back capacity,” contrary to the spirit of national-security and supply-chain policy.
CATL has been on the Pentagon’s list of Chinese military companies since January 2025.
Ford announced the plant in February 2023 as a wholly owned $3.5 billion facility licensing CATL’s cell technology, the first carmaker-backed LFP plant in the US, and cut it to about 20 GWh and 1,700 jobs later that year amid the UAW strike, local and congressional opposition, the risk of losing federal tax credits over the Chinese link, and slowing EV demand.
In December Ford widened the licence to stationary storage for a separate grid-battery business, centred on its Kentucky plant after the BlueOval SK venture with SK On was dissolved, with about $2 billion of investment and shipments from 2027.
Marshall itself builds cells for Ford’s electric vehicles. Ford’s statement describes the CATL arrangement as a limited licensing and services agreement, not a joint venture, at a plant it owns and runs.
The Geely venture, announced on July 23, gives the Chinese group 34% of a company that will run Ford’s Valencia plant from 2027 and build a European Bronco, a jointly developed crossover and two Geely electric SUVs from 2028.
Duffy wrote that it helps “strategic adversaries secure a vital foothold in Western markets.” John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House select committee on China, had called the deal incomprehensible on the day it was announced. Ford sold Volvo Cars to Geely in 2010.
The BYD reference rests on talks last reported in January, when Bloomberg said Ford was discussing hybrid batteries for its overseas plants with BYD among several suppliers and no deal was imminent.
Ford said then only that it talks to many companies and has confirmed nothing since. Duffy describes the talks as ongoing and concerning hybrid components, and warns they could embed “subsidized foreign technology” in Ford’s core supply chain.
The Nautilus is built at Changan Ford’s plant in Hangzhou and imported to the US.
Duffy’s letter treats 2030 as the date Ford will move it, and calls the wait “an unacceptable, multi-year window of reliance on Chinese manufacturing.”
Farley said on August 12, in an interview with Reuters alongside Lutnick, that some Lincoln models would move to US production from 2030 and that China-built imports for US customers would end, without naming a plant or a Nautilus-specific date.
Lutnick praised the plan then and again on Fox days later.
The Detroit Framework
The letter also faults a “framework you proposed at the Detroit Auto Show to facilitate Chinese joint ventures on United States soil.”
The Detroit News reported in February that Farley had discussed with cabinet members in January a structure under which Chinese carmakers could build in the US only through joint ventures controlled by an American partner, with profits and technology shared, the mirror of the rule China imposed on Western manufacturers for three decades.
The discussions were described as informal.
Trump had said at the time that he would consider letting Chinese carmakers in if they built plants and hired Americans, and toured Ford’s Dearborn truck plant with Farley on January 13.
The Politics
The letter arrives as Congress moves a tightened ban on Chinese vehicles, which the major carmakers, Ford included, urged last week be passed before year-end with no waivers for BYD or other Chinese manufacturers.
Farley’s own position has been consistent for two years and hard to hold: Chinese EVs are an existential threat, Ford’s low-cost EV due in 2027 is built to compete with BYD, and Ford will license, partner and negotiate with Chinese companies to get there.
The Chinese embassy in Washington, CATL, BYD and Geely did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Ford in China
The business the letter describes has already turned inside out. Ford’s China wholesale volume fell from 467,000 in 2023 to 379,000 in 2025 while exports from its Chinese plants rose from 74,000 in 2022 to more than 180,000.
Ford holds about 32% of Jiangling Motors and half of Changan Ford.
