Ford to transition Lincoln production from China to the US from 2030
Starting in 2030, Ford Motor Company will increase production of vehicles from its luxury SUV brand Lincoln in the US, gradually shifting away from exporting Lincoln vehicles from China to the US.
Ford will reshore production of the Lincoln Nautilus, currently exported from China, to the US from 2030
Lincoln
Ford Motor Company recently announced plans to increase US production of Lincoln vehicles from 2030, as it phases out imports from China for the US market, in a move it has said "will further strengthen Ford’s position as America's number-one auto producer". This announcement draws a firm line under the brand's brief experiment with Chinese-built imports.
For an industry that spent three decades chasing the lowest landed cost per unit, the decision could be read as an admission that geography, and not efficiency, is now the dominant variable in plant location. Ford has not said which facility will absorb the additional volume, nor has it disclosed the scale of investment required, but the direction of travel is now explicit. Lincoln, in Ford's own words, is "a quintessentially American brand", and its supply chain will soon reflect that positioning in hard fact, as well as in public statement.
A short-lived Chinese chapter
The vehicle at the centre of the shift is the Lincoln Nautilus, whose current generation is assembled at the Changan Ford plant in Hangzhou and shipped to American dealerships. That arrangement, struck in 2023, marked the first time Lincoln had sourced a US-market model from China. It has proven costly.
The Nautilus is currently subject to a tariff of 52.5% on entry to the United States, a levy that has turned what was once a cost-saving manufacturing decision into a significant drag on margin.
Ford's exposure to tariff policy more broadly is not trivial. The company reported gross costs of approximately $3 billion (£2.4 billion) tied to tariffs implemented or revised during 2025, with an estimated $2 billion (£1.6 billion) impact on earnings before interest and tax after offsetting measures, according to its most recent annual report.
Against that backdrop, reshoring Lincoln production looks less like a patriotic gesture and more like a rational response to a cost structure that has been rewritten by trade policy rather than by engineering or labour economics.
Building on an existing North American base
Lincoln already manufactures two of its most important nameplates domestically. The Navigator is built at Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville and the Aviator at Chicago Assembly Plant, both of which also supply export markets including Canada, Mexico and the Middle East.
Ford has framed the 2030 expansion as an extension of that existing footprint rather than a standalone project, which suggests the additional Lincoln volume is more likely to be absorbed into current plant networks than to require an entirely new site.
The Kentucky Truck Plant and Chicago Assembly are already running full-size and three-row Lincoln programmes alongside their Ford-badged siblings, and any decision to add Nautilus-class volume into that mix would carry implications for line balancing, tooling flexibility and supplier logistics well before the first reshored vehicle reaches a dealer lot.
Ford's own language, that the move will "generate thousands of direct and indirect US jobs", points to meaningful new headcount and supplier activity rather than a token production run. Ford CEO and President Jim Farley set out the rationale in a statement accompanying the announcement.
"Lincoln is a quintessentially American brand, and Ford is America's automaker. This wasn't necessarily the easiest path. In fact, it's a path most of our competitors aren't choosing to take. But Ford builds in America because we believe in America, and we're betting on that belief again," said Farley.
The supply chain implications of moving away from Chinese exports
By reshoring production of Lincoln vehicles from China to the US, Ford not only reduces tariff-related costs, but can also remove the cost of shipping finished vehicles across the Pacific. At a time when international trade routes and shipping costs have been affected by global disruption, this move could strengthen the long-term resilience of the Lincoln supply chain while enabling a modal shift towards domestic road and rail.
When it comes to supply chain, however, one question still remains: will the reshoring of the Nautilus mean a full reshoring of its supply chain? Although Ford has not explicitly stated how its supply chain will adapt to the move, its reference to creating direct and indirect jobs in the US suggests that the relocation could be accompanied by a broader shift in its supplier network.
Executing this transition will take time and planning, but Ford has given itself until 2030 to redesign its network accordingly. Before the end of the decade, it will need to synchronise the increase in US Lincoln production with the winding down of its operation in China, ensure a sufficient supply of parts from domestic and international suppliers, and work with existing and new logistics partners in the US to handle the additional volume.
