These companies are doing fairly well up to this point but they could never reshuffle and bring back there there assembly division to what would be needed, Not to forget the enormous parts divisions of Delco and Motorcraft ! They don’t have the market capital to invest in this type of venture and have long ago sold the properties they were on. This idea of returning seem insanely far fetched. I believe there could be millions of retirees or spouses that still receive pensions from these companies that could be in jeopardy if they default because of this poor policy decision.
If either of these companies were to declare bankruptcy that would impact pensions, but if they have to redesign production in order to build their cars 100% in the US, and if they can remain profitable, and that is a big “if”, their pensions should be okay.
Keep in mind that the most US auto makers, I’m not too sure about Tesla, outsource many of their parts, and much of their labor, to places like Canada and Mexico because it’s cheaper, and that keeps them competitive with foreign auto makers who have inherently cheaper costs. To bring all of that back in-house will be challenging and expensive for the US auto makers.
Maybe they will wait and see how the tariffs impact their pricing versus their competition. If tariffs are being applied to all foreign cars sold in the US, except those that are 100% US made, it might not hurt them that much since most car prices will increase as a result.
[Moderating]
I don’t think any factual answer to this question is possible. Moving to IMHO.
If it takes 5 or 10 years to move parts production back to the USA, what happens meanwhile?
And if you imagine being a senior Ford or GM exec, how confident are you in the reliability and sustainability of these tariffs to be confident enough to commit to spending the billions of dollars of capital that are needed to move parts production? Capital you won’t get back if the whims of the toddler tyrant change tomorrow. Or he’s no longer in charge for some reason.
Sorry!