CNN’s Kasie Hunt in Disbelief After Peter Navarro Says U.S. Auto Companies Aren’t Really American: ‘Ford Isn’t an American Company?’

HUNT: “So, let me ask you about — I’m glad you raised jobs as part of this. Have you gotten a guarantee from the Big Three and especially from the American auto companies that the increased costs that they are going to bear, especially with the tariffs on car parts, are not going to result in them cutting jobs? Because often, Americans know, companies respond to increased costs by cutting their own costs, which is mainly in jobs. So, are these American companies going to refrain from cutting jobs as they try to respond to this?”

NAVARRO: “So, the first thing that’s really important to understand is that the Big Three, so-called American companies, GM, Ford, Stellantis, they’re not — they’re not really American companies. In fact, they have less —“

HUNT: “General Motors isn’t an American company?”

NAVARRO: “They have — well, in this sense, Kasie, this is really interesting. They have less—“

HUNT: “Ford isn’t an American company?”

NAVARRO: “Hang on, hang on.”

HUNT: “They build Ford Tough. It’s —“

NAVARRO: “Kasie, do you want to answer the question? This is really interesting.”

HUNT: “Alright.”

NAVARRO: “They have less American content in their cars than some of the other companies that are operating in America, like Honda. OK? So, when you ask about —“

HUNT: “So, Honda is a more American car company than Ford and GM?”

NAVARRO: “— those three — no, what you have to do, you’ve got to look at Honda, you got to look at Toyota, all of these car companies and say what’s going to happen? Every single one of them now have a massive incentive to produce here domestically. And I don’t mean assemble, I mean produce. I mean auto parts, engines, engine transmissions, the drivetrain, the powertrain. The wages for the powertrains alone are $10 to $20 more per hour. And you know where almost 50 percent of the engines in American cars are made? It’s not here. It’s Germany and Japan and Hungary and Korea, and we only make 19 percent of the engines that go into our cars. That’s a product of German and Japanese industrial policy which retains their higher wage jobs for their country. And they’re — they’re just sticking it to us. So, if you look at this, everybody’s going to be better off in America through this policy. And I’m telling you, Kasie, what you’re going to see is a race. It’s a Golden Age race of all these different auto companies to get production here, auto parts, autos here. Enough of this foreign content where we’re just simply assembly lines. So let’s see what happens, as the boss says. But I can assure you, when you put all of the Trump plan together, consumers and workers, American deplorables are going to be much better off than they were under Biden and much better off than they will be if we hadn’t acted.”