JPMorgan's Dimon, Gov. Whitmer and Ford's Farley Talk the Michigan Lift

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We now go to Detroit, Michigan. David Westin is joined by Ford CEO, Jim Farley, JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, and Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, for an exclusive interview on the launch of a public-private partnership, David.

David Westin (0:26)

Thank you so much. I am here in Detroit, Michigan. 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 and JPMorgan, for a big announcement here, actually. It's something called Lyft, Michigan Lyft, which is launch pad for Industrial Innovation and Transformation. So Jim, those are pretty good words, innovation, transformation, industrial. What does it all mean? What is it?

Jim Farley (0:49)

We're trying to fix a problem, on-shoring things that we're offshore in the name of pennies on the dollar, to make here in the US where we needed to be independent, even defend ourselves. Ford is going to commit a billion dollars of purchasing for new companies that are going to be building advanced manufacturing, new capabilities, even magnets and rare earth, that we used to buy overseas and now we're going to buy here with the help of JPMorgan as well as the state of Michigan.

David Westin (1:19)

It's Michigan lift, do they have to be Michigan companies?

Jim Farley (1:22)

Yes.

David Westin (1:22)

So companies from Michigan. So Jamie, I ask you, markets we rely upon for an awful lot. Basically it served us a 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?

Jamie Dimon (1:34)

Yeah, so I think first I applaud the initiative and I also think it's really important that states, governments, business work together to fix things like Detroit, which they did. So that's like the number one thing. But 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 and you invented something here, you need an order, he's got to order it, it's got to actually work, they may have to build a real plant, not just an experimental plant. And so it takes that whole group of us to do this kind of thing.

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.

David Westin (2:12)

So Governor Whitmer, why Michigan? Why is it so important for Michigan? Why is this the right place to start this?

Gretchen Whitmer (2:18)

Well, we know how to build things. Michigan, that's who we are in our DNA. We were 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.

David Westin (2:58)

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, 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?

Gretchen Whitmer (3:17)

Well, I want to 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.

David Westin (3:43)

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?

Jim Farley (3:53)

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, go into all of our trucks and all of our plants. And so we are looking for innovative companies, even in the aluminum supply chain, with this initiative.