Ford Motor Co. (F) said it will oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership if the trade agreement doesn’t limit a country’s ability to manipulate its currency.
The proposed pact “is not likely to generate any net benefits for American manufacturers if it does not address the critical issue of currency manipulation,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of the Americas, said in a Feb. 6 speech at the Chicago Auto Show.
U.S. automakers, led by Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford, have accused Japan of weakening the value of the yen to benefit its auto industry — something Japanese leaders deny. The benefits of a weakened yen were reflected this week in Toyota Motor Corp. (7203)’s third-quarter earnings, which showed operating profit from its home country of Japan surged 20-fold to 331.3 billion yen.