The United States Department of Transportation has sent a letter to Ford Motor Company raising concerns about the carmaker’s partnerships with Chinese firms during ongoing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. In the letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that Ford’s partnership with China’s CATL, a battery maker, as well as car companies Geely and BYD, poses national security concerns. The letter was made public on Tuesday but sent late last week.
Duffy questioned Ford’s partnership with CATL at its Marshall, Michigan, plant, where it produces lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery cells. CATL is one of the companies the US Department of Defense banned in January 2025, before President Donald Trump took office. Duffy claimed that the carmaker’s joint venture with Geely in Spain “helps strategic adversaries secure a vital foothold in Western markets”.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) also questioned Ford’s talks with China’s BYD on hybrid vehicle parts, saying it “could lead to further embedding subsidized foreign technology into Ford’s core supply chains”. Ford had planned to move Lincoln Nautilus production to the US from China by 2030. That, however, would not suffice, according to Duffy, who said that the decision “leaves an unacceptable, multi-year window of reliance on Chinese manufacturing”.
Attempting to navigate current circumstances in ways that could enrich those very competitors is not a sustainable strategy for the United States,” the letter said. Ford’s stock fell 4.2 percent on Tuesday after the letter. The company has not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
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