Ford says it builds more vehicles in America than anyone else. General Motors says it invests more in America than anyone else. Both companies are right, depending on which numbers you're looking at, and the argument over which is truly the most American automaker has taken on new urgency as trade rules that shape where cars get built face a possible overhaul.
Ford's case rests on production and payroll. The automaker says it topped every other manufacturer in U.S. vehicle assembly, U.S. vehicle exports and hourly autoworker employment in 2025, according to Ford. The company says it assembled more than 2 million vehicles domestically last year and that 83% of the vehicles it sells in the United States are built here. Ford also says it employs approximately 56,300 hourly manufacturing workers nationwide, more than any competitor, and that it shipped roughly 311,000 U.S.-assembled vehicles to more than 60 international markets in 2025.
GM, for its part, is making a different kind of argument, one built on dollars rather than assembly lines. The company says its domestic manufacturing investments have topped $6 billion over the past 12 months alone, according to General Motors, including a combined $830 million earmarked to strengthen three U.S. propulsion sites. Zoom out further, and GM says it has invested $60 billion in the United States since 2020, contributed nearly $50 billion directly to U.S. GDP in 2024, and generated a total U.S. economic footprint of $134 billion that year once supply-chain activity and employee spending are factored in, per the automaker's own economic-impact accounting.
A Fight Over Which Yardstick Counts
The comparison boils down to what counts as American. If the measure is domestic assembly volume and hourly manufacturing headcount, Ford's figures put it ahead on paper. If the measure is total U.S. investment, facilities, employment and broader economic contribution, GM has a case of its own to make. Neither company's self-reported figures have been independently verified, and there is no single, directly comparable ranking that settles the question once and for all.
That ambiguity is baked into how modern vehicles get built in the first place. Engines, transmissions, semiconductors, batteries, steel, software and thousands of other components are sourced internationally even for cars assembled at a plant down the road. Federal law tries to cut through some of that fog: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires new passenger vehicles to disclose U.S./Canadian parts content, and its labeling reports list manufacturer-provided information about the value of parts used in assembly, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those labels identify the final assembly location and the countries of origin for the engine and transmission, combining U.S. and Canadian content into a single disclosed percentage. Under 49 CFR Part 583, outside suppliers must also provide that content information when a manufacturer or allied supplier requests it, per the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.
Why the Timing Matters
The rivalry is playing out just as the rules governing North American auto trade face potential change. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is expected to move into an annual review process rather than receive a 16-year extension, according to CNBC. USMCA currently requires passenger vehicles and light trucks to hit 75% regional value content sourced from North America, a threshold the U.S. Commerce Department's trade agency also cites, alongside similar requirements for specified auto parts, according to trade.gov.
The Trump administration is reportedly pushing to raise that regional-value-content requirement to 82%, with half of that value required to come from inside the United States, the same CNBC report states. Industry executives say hitting that bar would take years and billions of dollars in investment to shift production and sourcing onshore. Automakers and trade groups are also warning that reopening USMCA could inject fresh uncertainty into the market, potentially chilling the investment and job growth the agreement was meant to encourage. CNBC notes that USMCA has already driven $182 billion in North American investment, with 86% of it announced for the United States.
What the Labels Actually Show
For car shoppers trying to sort fact from marketing copy, the federal parts-content label remains one of the few standardized comparison points, even if it has limits. On the current model-year list, none of the vehicles reached 80% combined U.S./Canadian content, with the Volkswagen ID.4 all-wheel-drive Pro leading the pack at 76%, per the same CNBC report. That gap between corporate messaging and the fine print on the label underscores just how tangled global supply chains have become, even for automakers eager to wrap themselves in the flag.
As DC News Now has reported on the dueling claims, the honest answer to who is more American may simply depend on which numbers a buyer, or a policymaker, decides matter most. Ford's assembly lines and hourly payrolls tell one story; GM's investment dollars and economic footprint tell another. Both companies are betting that their version of the story will resonate as trade rules, tariffs and sourcing requirements keep reshaping the industry underneath them.
