Ford is very pleased with itself. Jim Farley has produced a full-throated hymn to American assembly, American jobs, and American grit, or what’s left of it. It’s the sort of industrial patriotism that always sounds grandest when a tariff is a bouncer lurking just off stage in a badly cut suit.
The headline claim is that Ford topped every other automaker in U.S. vehicle assembly, U.S. exports, and hourly autoworker employment in 2025. More than 2 million vehicles were assembled in the United States last year, according to Ford, with 83% of the vehicles it sells in America assembled there as well. The company says it shipped roughly 311,000 U.S.-assembled vehicles to more than 60 international markets, and employs about 56,300 hourly manufacturing workers in the country.
Ford wants you to see that as proof the old industrial backbone is still breathing, and on this evidence it has a point. Of course, Chinese cars are taboo aren’t they?
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ABOVE: Ford workers and company graphics laying out the scale of its U.S. assembly, exports, and factory employment claims.
The numbers are the point
Quite right too, up to a point. If you are going to bang the drum about building cars at home while rivals have spent years shipping work offshore, then this is the moment to wallop it hard enough to rattle the cutlery. Ford says it assembles more than six vehicles in America for every one it imports, and that is exactly the sort of statistic designed to make political speechwriters shiver with atici……pation. It is simple, muscular, and easy to chant in a factory with a hard hat on and a camera crew nearby, especially under a protectionist brolly.
The timing is not accidental
What makes the whole thing more interesting is the timing. Farley insists Ford’s commitment is not about policy or tariffs, except, yes it is. Perhaps in the broad historical sense that is true, but the rest of the world has changed and depite Ford’s bleating otherwise, the USA can only hold off for so long. Let’s don’t forget it abandoned manufacture in Australia without protection and subsidy.
At least in the US, Ford has been assembling vehicles in America for more than 120 uninterrupted years, and the company did indeed avoid the bailout route that became such a blood sport in Detroit mythology. But let us not pretend this op-ed floated down from heaven by pure coincidence. This is industrial positioning, neatly lacquered and ready for a political season where made here has become less a sourcing detail and more a nationalist aphrodisiac.
Why factories still matter
Still, the larger point is hard to dismiss. Manufacturing jobs do matter in ways service-economy evangelists tend to wave off with the supreme confidence of people who have never had to keep a town alive. Farley is right that an assembly plant is more than a shed with robots and payroll. It props up schools, first responders, suppliers, diners, truck routes, tax bases, and all the little civic organs that stop a place from turning into a row of vape stores and knocking shops. You cannot build a resilient economy on delivery apps and thoughts-n-prayers.
Ford also wants credit for what comes next. The company says it plans to hire thousands more workers in the United States over the next few years to support new petrol, hybrid, and ironically, electric vehicles, along with batteries and battery energy storage systems. Glendale in Kentucky, BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, Ohio Assembly Plant, and Tennessee Truck Plant all get a mention, in a “we are spending money where the flags are” kind of way. It is a useful reminder that even as carmakers bang on about software and mobility, this business still depends on very real people fastening very real bits into very real vehicles under very bright lights.
Robots cannot do everything, but either the USA has not even contemplated the kind of vertical integration China uses to ruthless effect, or it is incapable of it.
The sales pitch underneath the patriotism
Of course, there is a second reading here. Ford is not merely celebrating American manufacturing, it is trying to claim moral ownership of it. That is clever. It turns a business decision into a values statement and dares competitors to explain why they chose the cheaper road. Nobody wants to be cast as the chap who sold off the family silver, especially when the electorate is already spoiling for a trade stoush. Unlike China, a unionised workforce can’t be flogged and can still spend time on the grass if needed.
So yes, Ford has every reason to crow. The numbers are solid for now, the politics are favourable in an insane kind of way, and Farley has found a tune that sounds both patriotic and commercially useful. Whether all this Churchillian oration still lands with the same force when margins tighten, EV demand wobbles, or another round of cost cutting starts stalking the halls is a question for another day. For now, Ford is planting the stars and stripes in the factory floor and inviting everybody else to explain why they did not get there first.
it’s either terrible hubris or brilliant strategy. Buyers will decide which, not the boardroom. CEOs have been marched out of offices all over the industry for bluster over planning. Stellantis is a notable tale, and one Ford can’t afford to laugh off as impossible. After all, nobody could ever have imagined that the Australian manufacturing would fall like dominos once true competition bit it on the arse.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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