I am here in Detroit, Michigan. Actually, I have Michigan Central joined, as you say, by the governor of the great state of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, as well as Jim Farley and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan for a big announcement here, actually. It's something called Michigan Lyft, is launchpad for industrial innovation and transformation. So, Jim, those are pretty good words, innovation, transformation, industrial. What does it all mean? What is it?
We're trying to fix a problem on shoring things that were offshored in the name of pennies on the dollar to make here in the US where we needed to be independent, even defend ourselves. Ford's gonna commit a billion dollars of purchasing for new companies that are gonna be building advanced manufacturing, new capabilities, even magnets in rare earth, that we used to buy overseas, and now we're gonna buy here with the help of JPMorgan as well as the state of Michigan.
It's Michigan lift. Do they have to be Michigan companies? So companies from Michigan. So, Jamie, I ask you, markets we rely upon for an awful lot. Basically, it's served us in good stead for a lot of years in the United States. Why don't markets already take care of this? Why do we need this initiative?
Yeah. So I think, first, I applaud the initiative, and I also think it's really important that states, government, business work together to fix things like Detroit, which, you know, they did. So that's, like, the number one thing. But we need, we lost some of the muscle to do that. So I think markets will take care of a lot of it. But if you're an innovative company you invented something here, you need an order. He's gotta order it. It's gotta actually work. It's gotta, they may have to build a real plant, not just an experimental plant. And so, you know, it takes that whole group of us to do this kind of thing. So and hopefully, this will be replicated. This needs to be done everywhere in a lot of industries to make sure the United States can defend itself.
So, Governor Whitmer, why Michigan? Why is it so important for Michigan? Why is this the right place to start this?
Well, we know how to build things. Michigan, that's who we are in our DNA. We were, you know, the arsenal of democracy. This is about homeland security. It's about advanced manufacturing. That's who we are in Michigan. And so when I saw JPMorgan was doing this resiliency initiative, I reached out and said, let's talk about what's possible here in Michigan because I know what we are capable of, and I think government plays an important role with industry as we think about what the future looks like and how do we do advanced manufacturing and protect ourselves. And I think this is a combination of all of those great strengths, but we need to really have a concerted collaborative effort here.
This is ultimately about supply chain, as I understand it, resiliency of supply chain, which has been disrupted by geopolitics, actually, by trade and things like that. How does this fit, for example, Governor Whitmer, with your near neighbor, Canada? As we know, there's a lot of back and forth in the auto industry for Canada. How does this industry fit with that?
Well, I wanna first and foremost say the Canadians have been tremendous allies and partners of ours here in Michigan for a long time. Autos go back and forth over that border. This is the busiest crossing in North America is right here in Detroit. And so we're proud of that long heritage, but I think it's really important that we continue to onshore as much as we can to the United States from all around the world.
But if a Canadian company came along and was innovative in the industrial space and had something, for example, Jim, that you could use, could they apply to this program?
Yes. But we really want this to be a Michigan initiative. But there are so many things in Canada that we depend on. The whole aluminum, all of our trucks are made out of aluminum. All the ingots come from Canada across the border. We do all the finishing of aluminum here going to all of our trucks and all of our plants. And so we are looking for innovative companies, even in aluminum supply chain with this initiative.
So, Jamie, you have a piece actually in the Wall Street Journal just today about the need for economic policy that maintains the preeminence, you call it, of the US economy. Part of that is what we're talking about right here, which is supply chain and what we've done in supply chain. How does this fit in your plans for a preeminent US economy?
So what I talked about there is that if you wanna be safe, have the best military in the world. It's predicated on having the best economy in the world, and that is what makes the dollar reserve currency. Those two things, not some fantasy about something. We have the Atlantic, the Pacific, all the food, water, and energy we need. But on economic policies, you know, you could split domestic, and this is really domestic now, but also foreign. We have extensive relationships. And foreign policy is industrial policy, regulatory policy, investment policy. You know, companies overseas folks have 20 or 30 trillion dollars invested in the United States. American companies have almost equal numbers invested overseas. So to me, I wanna keep the Western world together for trade. I think that's the way you protect yourself. 60% of the global GDP is Europe, UK, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Canada, South Korea. And so I think, you know, and those are friends and allies. We have 40 military alliances, 20 free trade agreements. You know, obviously, if we're being treated unfairly, we should fix it. But my view is we should try to get these trade deals done. It's better for the US. It's better for those countries. You know, I don't know all the complexities. I can't get into exactly why, you know, we're running to roadblocks, but I would like to see them completed.
So, Jim, when it comes to the automotive industry, there are a lot of things that can and should be done. And you've been working on it actually with the essential economy, and so what you've got on the accelerator here. Where are you in that process, and how does this fit into your accelerator program?
I think we're in the second inning. We have 1.7 million open skilled jobs, skilled trades jobs in the United States. It's a crisis, and we have to do something about it. Of course, you know, Ford, myself, we can solve our problems, but that's not what we're trying to do. We've always been a company who is more ambitious than just the four walls of our company. So we've been putting a focus on the facts. We're publishing our first report on the facts around skilled trade deficits in the US. Most college advisers or high school advisers recommend a four-year degree. Only 2% of them recommended trade school. That's a problem. You know? A high-quality trade school graduates people almost 100%. So for a company like Ford, but also for our country, the resilience of our country, we have to address the skilled trade deficit. And we can sit on the sideline or just fix the problems at Ford, but that's not what we're gonna do in Detroit this week. We're trying to fix it for our country.
So, Governor, that takes us obviously to education and training, which as I understand is a component of this Michigan lift program. But what is Michigan doing specifically on the skilled trades and the training front?
A great deal. You know, part of our DNA is tradespeople. Right? And so we, I think, have put a lot of effort into making sure that anyone who wants to upskill can afford to do that. We've got free community college in Michigan now. We've got apprenticeships that are available and easy to get into. You can graduate from an apprenticeship, get a good paying job, and not have any debt carried on. I mean, this is a good way to make a very good living in this country that won't be impacted by AI but won't be replaced. And I think that that's something that gives people some confidence as well. Michigan is now ranked number four in the country by Site Selector magazine for our workforce efforts, and I think that that's something that will continue.
