Ford CEO Jim Farley Agrees With Fox News Host That Canada 'Sold Their Soul'

[TaxmanHog]

Ford CEO Jim Farley Agrees With Fox News Host That Canada 'Sold Their Soul'

By Brett Foote
April 14, 2026 11:45 am

Early this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney opted to slash that country's tariffs on imported Chinese vehicles, and allow for the sale of up to 49,000 units of models coming from that country - a number that will grow to around 70,000 in the next five years. This comes after Canada previously placed a de facto ban on such vehicles, which is currently the case in the U.S., due to its high tariffs and a ban on connected vehicles containing Chinese hardware or software. Now, Ford CEO Jim Farley is among a few criticizing Canada's decision.

In a recent interview with Fox News, reporter Brian Kilmeade said "Canada sold their soul to China, right?" Farley resounded by saying "Yeah, I mean they have a policy where they're going to allow some limited imports of Chinese vehicles, and I sure hope we don't allow them to come across the border."

In the same interview, Farley added that "we should not let them into our country, because the economic impact...manufacturing is the heart and soul of our country. And for us to lose that...to those exports, would be devastating for our country. That doesn't even include the cyber and privacy risk of a Chinese vehicle. All the vehicles have 10 cameras, they can collect a lot of data. There is no way this is a fair fight."

Farley certainly isn't alone in people or entities criticizing Canada's decision to allow the sale of Chinese vehicles in that country. The American Automotive Policy Council and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association - which represents Ford and many of its peers - also opposes the move, which is true of certain lawmakers, some of whom are calling for a total ban of those same vehicles from the U.S. In the meantime, Chinese automakers aren't wasting any time moving into the Canadian market, as BYD already plans to open 20 stores there by 2027.

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[flabrent]

I thought this place was non-supportive of political garbage.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I thought this place was non-supportive of political garbage.

It's news

 

[flabrent]

It's news

That's a pretty "low bar."
Does the AI video release today by the Iranian Embassy Tajikistan pass that "test?"

 

[Tony Burgh]

I remember when Detroit fought Japanese imports.
Big 3 took their beating and improved because of it.
At the same time, the steel industry discovered that steel making is low tech and third world nations could match American quality at lower costs. Steel modernized to reduce labor costs and now competes at lower volume. (Europe and Japan only get rebuilt once).
There will be pain. There is no gain without it.

 

[msingh]

I remember when Detroit fought Japanese imports.
Big 3 took their beating and improved because of it.
At the same time, the steel industry discovered that steel making is low tech and third world nations could match American quality at lower costs. Steel modernized to reduce labor costs and now competes at lower volume. (Europe and Japan only get rebuilt once).
There will be pain. There is no gain without it.

All due respect I don't know that they 'took their beating and improved...' Big three consistently rank low for quality/reliability. Maybe they did improve from where they were before but so did the competition. I feel they spent all of their time/resources on fighting the other companies vs. learning from them.

 

[The Weatherman]

Sign me up. I’ll take two, please!

 

[Tony Burgh]

All due respect I don't know that they 'took their beating and improved...' Big three consistently rank low for quality/reliability. Maybe they did improve from where they were before but so did the competition. I feel they spent all of their time/resources on fighting the other companies vs. learning from them.

Farley shows that nothing changes.

 

[rockhead]

Hard to see how are 'selling our soul' in returning to previous tariff rate on a handful quota of cars. Hard to see how this discussion could be anything but political ... Canada joined with the USA in an effort to protect the fledgling EV industry here and our continental integrated auto industry. China retaliated against us hard, that's ok right we have solid ally on our side right, oh yah well there's that. Once we're getting kicked in the nuts from the south and the east it becomes time to rethink who we can trust to behave consistently in matters of trade. A deal that changes from one day to the next is capricious bullshit.

If BYD wants to actually build cars here I welcome the effort, they have a proposal to use a Stellantis plant to assemble them, BZZZZZZT, wrong that's not building cars, that does not not support the myriad of upstream suppliers that make the north american auto industry a big thing. The governments that have supported Stellantis are dropping the hammer on them over this.

 

[MaintGrl]

An expected reply, Farley is shak'in in his shoe's, first crack in the wall.
Mr Wishy washy, ain't to happy, that's for sure.
I'd never buy one, but I'm sure there are a lotta folks that would.

 

[chl]

Ford CEO Jim Farley Agrees With Fox News Host That Canada 'Sold Their Soul'

By Brett Foote
April 14, 2026 11:45 am

Early this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney opted to slash that country's tariffs on imported Chinese vehicles, and allow for the sale of up to 49,000 units of models coming from that country - a number that will grow to around 70,000 in the next five years. This comes after Canada previously placed a de facto ban on such vehicles, which is currently the case in the U.S., due to its high tariffs and a ban on connected vehicles containing Chinese hardware or software. Now, Ford CEO Jim Farley is among a few criticizing Canada's decision.

In a recent interview with Fox News, reporter Brian Kilmeade said "Canada sold their soul to China, right?" Farley resounded by saying "Yeah, I mean they have a policy where they're going to allow some limited imports of Chinese vehicles, and I sure hope we don't allow them to come across the border."

In the same interview, Farley added that "we should not let them into our country, because the economic impact...manufacturing is the heart and soul of our country. And for us to lose that...to those exports, would be devastating for our country. That doesn't even include the cyber and privacy risk of a Chinese vehicle. All the vehicles have 10 cameras, they can collect a lot of data. There is no way this is a fair fight."

Farley certainly isn't alone in people or entities criticizing Canada's decision to allow the sale of Chinese vehicles in that country. The American Automotive Policy Council and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association - which represents Ford and many of its peers - also opposes the move, which is true of certain lawmakers, some of whom are calling for a total ban of those same vehicles from the U.S. In the meantime, Chinese automakers aren't wasting any time moving into the Canadian market, as BYD already plans to open 20 stores there by 2027.

They sold their soul when they imposed the tariffs to please our despotic bullying oil-loving administration.

They got their soul back when they cut them.

OMG Farley, what a stupid business plan.

He is basically saying US automakers can't compete so we need protectionist tariffs?

Guess what? The rest of the world is going to be choosing Chinese EVs or Teslas over Fords.

The world needs to get off of the fossil fuel addiction, and the sooner the better.

If Ford doesn't wake up to that soon, they will perish.

This oil shock is an opportunity to sell EV's.

Farley wants to hide his head in the sand and b-word about the Chinese, and Canada coming to its senses.

That is a loser's mentality.

 

[Adventureboy]

Don't like political garbage on the forum, but here are a few facts for thought:

• Ford, GM and Stellantis all pulled massive amounts of production out of Canada - they still build here, but assembly and associated supply chains are declining. I'll let you speculate why.
• Stellanis pulled out of the EV Battery plant in Windsor, however, it was still built by LG and is now open as of last month. This will support multiple brands - I'll let you guess which brands.
• China is bringing automotive production to Canada as part of the agreement - I'll let you figure out if that fills a gap to save the automotive soul of Canada.

Expanding automotive ball players at the moment in Canada are:

• Volkswagen (manufacturing and EV Battery plant)
• Honda (manufacturing core lineup, including hybrids)
• Toyota/Lexus (manufacturing core lineup, including hybrids)
• .... now China.

I'd like to see the NA players pick up their game here. People buy what they build, even if they only build the parts.

 

[flabrent]

When solid-state batteries eventually arrive, most vehicle makers will simply add them to the production line. The Big Three?? They'll be starting BEV's from scratch, again!
Such awesome business planning!

 

[Robocop]

BYD is the largest manufacturer of EVs in the world as they've already eaten Tesla - an American manufacturer - for lunch a long while ago. They own their supply chain, they make their own batteries, they own the assembly factories and they even own about 10 ships they use to transport the cars they manufacture to the markets they support around the world.

The USA is many laps behind in this race. Chinese EVs provide the operator with real-time live traffic information, live traffic signal timing information, live pedestrian data etc etc etc. The US (and Canada) tech is hopelessly behind in the tech race and EV integration is hapless in comparison. There is already infrastructure for automated full battery swaps. Anyone on this board ever heard of Li auto? not likely but check out what they are already doing! it is mindblowing!!!

Before 1998 Canada permitted the sale of new Russian cars and there was an actual licensed Lada dealership located nearby where I lived. They were cool to look at because they were rare and the cars were cheap ($10k at most, taxes in) but because the cars were also hot garbage no one bought them.

So I'm not sure why everyone is feeling so threatened if Chinese EVs are allowed into the market. What's the big deal? Who cares? Why all the anguish? What happened to the 'free market?' If the cars are crap no one will buy them right? everyone will see through the nonsense right?

Korean cars have been in the North American market for years and Japanese cars too. My grandad bought a Hyundai Pony, which was a laughable garbage 'car,' and it was cheap, but look at Hyundai now!!! The Honda CEO has recently admitted they too have bungled the EV piece.

If the product or products they (BYD) offer aren't good or don't appeal to North American customers they won't sell and the company will be forced to pack up and head home. Let's not forget Toyota bungled their EV launch (see BZ 4x or whatever) and the Honda Prologue is a just a GM with different badges.

No one is forcing consumers to purchase a BYD product - I know I'll never ever buy a Tesla or a BYD or a Hyundai or a Kia, or a Jaguar, or a Land Rover, or any GM product, or any Stellantis product, or a VW etc etc etc - so I don't care what these companies do. Nothing they could ever do will convince me to give them my money but I can't speak for everyone else.

But if BYD is able to embarrass other manufacturers into upping their game because of a new competitor in the market, I'm all for it.

 

[Astrotrain00]

Or did he? Ha.

Walked that back real quick after a phone call.

https://fordauthority.com/2026/04/ford-ceo-jim-farley-walks-back-anti-chinese-ev-comments/

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