Ford recently announced that they will sell the Raptor pickup in China. It’s expensive enough that the prospective buyers won’t be turned off by the tariff on imported vehicles. It seems like a good way to introduce their full size pickups to a huge market. If all goes well, Ford should build a plant there to overcome the import taxes. Maybe they can export parts from here for assembly in China as is done with Mexico. Assembly in China might also open up to free F series sales in countries with no-tariff trade agreements. The Detroit Three get this benefit with Mexico now. Any comments?
None. It’s business.
Great! A barely tapped market of 1.3 Billion people.
I’m not aware of many complaints about American manufacturers who wish to build their products in a country or region outside the USA where they wish to sell them. The complaints seem mainly to be about American manufacturers building their products elsewhere, then importing them into the USA to sell them to American customers. Folks can reasonably agree or disagree about the latter, but about the former I see few issues.
Ford and GM, to name 2 manufacturers, have been building trucks in Mexico and Canada for years, probably long before NAFTA, and selling them in the US
How come I didn’t hear people complaining about their Mexican-built Chevy Silverado 30 years ago?
Probably because well over 90% of the end-buyers didn’t bother checking where the truck was in fact built. Not at that time, anyways. And also because AFAIK, there’s no quality difference, anyways.
As for Ford building plants in China, so that they can sell the trucks as a domestic automobile, and thus forego the local tariffs, that’s just good business
I really don’t think the overwhelming majority of buyers care where their car or pickup was manufactured, as long as it’s affordable, reliable, and meets their needs.
Most people will pay a premium for reliability, performance, luxury, or exclusivity (whatever mix of these they desire) but very, very few will pay extra to have a vehicle manufactured in any particular country. Including their own. The automobile industry, much to its credit, is one of the few truly global industries and has been for decades.
IMHO tariffs and other trade restrictions are only to “level” trade imbalances as they affect debt
between nations and/or placate political constituencies.
I’m not saying that any of this is bad or good, only that it’s reality.
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I think Henry Ford constructed plants very early on in Europe to build model T’s and model A’s for selling to European customers. This went on for years, maybe Ford still does manufacture cars in Europe, don’t know. In some cases the models produced there were entirely different from the USA for some reason. There was a model Ford built there in the 1960’s called the Anglia, which is gaining popularity these days as a restoration classic. Some say it is a little on the “ugly” side, but I’ve always thought it an interesting style, with nice, modern lines. I could see buying one myself, what with the bold round headlights with the eyebrow feature. Below is a 1960 example.
I may be wrong, but I believe the Model T and Model A were never sold in Europe
But yes, Ford cars are manufactured in Europe, but they generally aren’t identical to those destined for the US
The Model T was built in England…well it was a part of Europe…
;-]
You are wrong 
and they sold quite well also.
Ford has been built in both England and Germany and up to around -76 each of them had their own models and some shared. The German products were prefered because of their quality, but were also more expensive. Today, Ford of Britain probably only build cars for England (Right hand drive) as well as Vauxhall is the name for Opel with RHD
