The Ford Motor Company is donating $1 million and a fleet of vehicles to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, as the company tries to lobby for relief from his proposed tariffs, Reuters reported Monday.
All of this, the report noted, comes as "policies on tariffs and electric vehicles that the incoming administration is considering would likely affect Detroit carmakers like Ford, who are struggling to ramp up and sell their battery-powered models." Trump has already vowed massive tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, the latter two of which at least would significantly impact Ford's production. He has also proposed scrapping an electric vehicle subsidy that Ford benefits from.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk's flagship automaker Tesla also benefits from the electric vehicle subsidy, but he has signaled he is unconcerned with it being eliminated because he believes his competitors would be the larger losers.
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“(Given) Ford’s employment profile and importance in the U.S. economy and manufacturing, you can imagine the administration will be very interested in Ford’s point of view,” CEO Jim Farley said in a recent statement.
Economists have raised alarms that Trump's proposed tariffs could result in massive price hikes on consumer goods and energy.
Trump has insisted that foreign countries will pay the United States to export their goods. However, experts say U.S. consumers will likely pay the costs of the tariffs.
This also comes as a number of tech companies such as Amazon and Meta pour money into Trump's inauguration. The incoming president has repeatedly attacked these companies.