Ford Motor’s Curious Policy Priorities

Though it has been relatively successful in the marketplace lately, the Ford Motor Company continues to confound in its public policy commitments.

First, the company remained silent for the better part of two years as its chief domestic rivals General Motors and Chrysler were nursed back to viability by a doting government dispensing $65 billion of taxpayer-funded nourishment. Not once (to my knowledge) did Ford publicly complain that the government bailout of its struggling competitors was an affront to its own prospects or that it would deny the company its rightful increase in sales and market share (the so-called spoils of competition).

But now Ford is trumpeting its opposition to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. In a full page ad in today’s Washington Post, Ford implores Americans to reject the agreement as it currently stands, arguing that it would "allow Korea to remain one of the most closed automotive markets in the world." So all of a sudden Ford is concerned about sales and market share?

Had GM and Chrysler been allowed to contract to a degree commensurate with their reckless decisions over the years, Ford might have hit the mother lode of sales and market share. But Ford didn’t even attempt to make that case. If Ford is so concerned about sales and market share, where is the outrage over the $45.4 billion in unconventional tax deferrals being granted GM as part of the ongoing bailout bonanza? Aren’t those deferrals just subsidies to help GM regain market share … at Ford’s expense?

Instead, Ford has chosen to target a trade agreement that promises enormous benefits to American businesses and consumers, a slew of new domestic employment opportunities, and annual increases in GDP of anywhere from $17 to $43 billion (bailout-type sums!) on the grounds that the agreement contains no guarantees of increased U.S. auto sales in Korea.

There are no guarantees in trade. But that’s what Ford and others in the U.S. auto industry and in Congress want: guaranteed sales figures, bilateral trade balance within the auto sector, managed outcomes. Is that what Ford means in the ad where it claims to support free trade?

Granted, the Korean auto market has been notoriously difficult to penetrate. Behind-the-border taxes levied on engine size and other non-tariff barriers have discouraged purchases of U.S. automobiles in Korea. But without the agreement, none of that will change. With the agreement, Korea reduces its tariff on passenger vehicles from 8% to 0 immediately, while the United States reduces its tariff on passenger vehicles from 2.5% to 0 immediately. So both are good reforms, but there is no question that U.S. auto exporters get a relatively bigger boost from the agreement. And though there are no guarantees of hard sales quotas, one can be pretty well assured that only the most inept producer/exporter would fail to capitalize on an 8 percent cost reduction granted with the stroke of a pen.

Ford should stop politicking and stay focused on the goal of making better automobiles.