President Donald J. Trump is treating Ford’s hiring problems as a feature, not a bug. While the automaker scrambles to fill thousands of open roles, he is telling audiences that it is “a good thing” the company cannot find enough workers because robots are about to pick up the slack. The remark neatly captures his broader bet that booming investment and automation can stand in for old-school factory payrolls.
That framing lands in the middle of a messy reality for Detroit, where auto manufacturing jobs have been slipping even as the White House touts a manufacturing comeback. It also puts Trump at odds with executives like Ford CEO Jim Farley, who warn that the labor crunch is already biting and that the shift to automation is not painless for the people who used to build F-150s and Broncos by hand.
Trump’s “good thing” comment and the robot pitch
Trump’s latest riff on automation came as he talked about Ford’s struggle to staff its plants, telling supporters that the company’s inability to hire enough people is actually positive because “you’re gonna have a thing called robots.” In his telling, the tight labor market is proof that the economy is running hot and that technology is ready to step in where human workers are scarce. He has framed the situation as a sign that the country is doing “so well” that companies like Ford simply cannot find people willing and able to take the jobs.
That upbeat spin tracks with his broader message that “growth is exploding, productivity is soaring, investment is booming,” a line he has used while pointing to new money flowing into Detroit and other industrial hubs. At the same time, official data show that auto manufacturing jobs have fallen every month since Liberation Day, a reminder that rising productivity is increasingly decoupled from blue-collar employment. When Trump hypes robots as a “big factor” in Ford’s future, he is leaning into that decoupling and signaling that he sees automation as the fix for both labor shortages and cost pressures.
Ford’s worker shortage collides with the White House narrative
Ford’s hiring problems are not hypothetical. The company has been trying to fill thousands of vacancies across its U.S. operations, particularly in skilled trades that keep modern assembly lines running. Trump has seized on those unfilled roles as evidence that the labor market is tight and that companies will increasingly rely on machines, telling one audience that robots are going to be a “big factor” and that he does not see the shortage as a problem so much as a transition.
Reporting on his comments notes that Trump, earlier in Jan, framed Ford’s struggle to hire as part of a broader story about a strong economy and technological change, saying that “we’re gonna need the help of robots” as factories modernize. In that same stretch, he argued that the carmaker’s inability to hire more people, with Ford still short on workers for key positions, is manageable because automation will fill the gap, a view echoed in coverage of Ford vacancies and his insistence that companies should not see the shift as a crisis.
Tariffs, Detroit, and the shrinking factory headcount
Trump’s robot talk is tightly wrapped around his tariff policy and his pitch that he has revived American manufacturing. At the Dearborn Ford plant, he defended his trade approach in front of workers and executives, telling the crowd that tariffs were protecting domestic producers and helping fuel new investment. He carried the same message to the Detroit Economic Club, where he argued that his strategy was steering capital back into U.S. factories even as critics warned about higher costs.
Yet the numbers on the ground tell a more complicated story. Auto manufacturing jobs have declined each month since April 2025, even as Trump and his allies celebrate new projects and expansions. Coverage of his appearance at Dearborn Ford and the Detroit Economic Club notes that while he touted tariffs as a win, the sector has been quietly shedding workers. Analysts tracking the impact of his trade policy add that his tariffs are not obviously driving up consumer prices, but they are contributing to a smaller manufacturing workforce, with the president himself suggesting that any shortfalls in staffing can be covered by robots instead of people.
What Trump actually said about Ford and robots
The “good thing” line that ricocheted across social media came during a conversation where Trump was pressed on whether Ford’s hiring troubles signaled deeper problems. He brushed that off, saying it was “actually a good thing” that Ford could not hire enough workers because the company and the broader industry were on the cusp of a new wave of automation. He described workers being “trained rapidly” for higher tech roles while machines take over more of the repetitive tasks on the line.
Accounts of the exchange, including one by Charlie Nash, quote Trump leaning into his familiar cadence as he talked about Ford’s situation in Jan, insisting that the company’s difficulty finding people willing and able to take the jobs was a sign of success rather than strain. In a follow up, he doubled down, saying, “Now what’s going to happen is people are being trained rapidly and you’re gonna have a thing called robots,” a remark captured in coverage of his “good thing” comment and later repeated as he argued that the transition to automation would be smooth because workers could be quickly retrained.
Automation boom, worker anxiety
Trump’s optimism about robots lands in an industry that has been automating for decades and is now accelerating that shift. Analysts looking at the auto sector warn that “manufacturing will suffer” in terms of headcount even when production returns to the United States, because new plants are built around highly automated systems that need fewer people on the floor. That pattern is already visible in survey data, which show companies investing heavily in equipment and software while keeping a tight lid on hiring.
In Detroit, that means the same “booming” investment Trump celebrates is not translating into the kind of broad-based job growth that defined earlier eras of carmaking. Reporting on the region notes that manufacturing is becoming more capital intensive, with robots and advanced machinery doing more of the work that once required large crews. When Trump says it is positive that Ford cannot hire enough workers because robots will help out, he is effectively endorsing a model where productivity gains come first and job counts are an afterthought.
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