The Ford F-series was the best-selling pickup truck in the United States for the 44th consecutive year in 2025, but for months, the company had been asking the government for help with a costly issue, only to be repeatedly rebuffed, according to a new report.
President Donald Trump and his administration have denied repeated requests from Ford and other U.S. automakers for relief from aluminum tariffs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Inventory levels for the F-150 have been falling due to fallout from the September fire at the Novelis plant in Oswego, New York.
While Novelis supplies industry players such as Coca-Cola, AB InBev, and Samsung with aluminum, the auto industry, including Ford, Jaguar LandRover, and Stellantis, is also extremely reliant on the company.
The blaze at the Oswego plant wasn’t your run-of-the-mill fire.
It took about 175 firefighters from 26 different area fire departments to extinguish the September blaze. Novelis said it would take months to return to full production, but on Nov. 20, a second fire broke out.
At the time, Ford said it was pivoting to other aluminum suppliers; however, it also estimated that it would lose between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in EBIT in the fourth quarter due to the disruption.
President Trump puts more pressure on Ford after doubling aluminum tariffs
While President Donald Trump announced the first batch of aluminum tariffs over a year ago, on Monday, April 6, the government officially increased them to an ad valorem rate of 50% for goods made almost entirely of aluminum, steel, or copper. This includes coils and aluminum sheets, like the ones carmakers use for the bodies of their vehicles.
Both auto industry execs and the White House have said they’ve been in constant contact since before the first batch of auto tariffs went into effect, but the latest attempts to soften their tariff burdens have fallen on deaf ears, according to the Journal.
Related: Ford F-150 shoppers may want to wait to buy
“In recent weeks, Ford has petitioned the Trump administration for assistance, asking officials for relief from the duties at least until Novelis’ Oswego plant returns to full service,” the Journal reported, citing “people with knowledge of the conversations.”
Ford previously said it doesn’t expect to return the mill at Novelis to operations until “somewhere in the middle of the year, the range between May and September.” It did not immediately return a request for comment for this story.
According to the report, the “administration hasn’t budged,” leaving Ford in a billion-dollar hole from which it can’t escape. Trump officials say the administration has already given the automotive industry a break by allowing companies to recoup some of what they paid on automotive parts subject to the 25% tariff.
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Ford F-150 prices could remain elevated until summer 2026
The Novelis fire cost Ford around 100,000 F-Series units last year, Sherry House, Ford’s chief financial officer, said in the company’s last earnings call.
Last year, Ford CEO Jim Farley visited the Novelis site following the September 16 fire that brought down part of the factory’s roof.
“We immediately mobilized a dedicated crisis team, worked around the clock with Novelis to secure alternative aluminum sources for our operational lines and accelerate a plant’s recovery,” Farley said.
Despite the quick pivot, Ford expected an EBIT headwind between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in the fourth quarter, with a cash headwind of $1 billion or less between this year and next.
But he made those estimates before the second fire broke out at the plant on Nov. 20. A fire started in the section of the plant with the rolling mill, where heated aluminum slabs are flattened into long, thin sheets before they are processed further in a different area.
Ford expects to have the mill at Novelis back operational “somewhere in the middle of the year, the range between May and September.”
Ford is the plant’s biggest customer. In 2015, Ford decided to replace the steel bodies of its large trucks and SUVs with aluminum to reduce weight and improve fuel economy.
Across the company, Ford reported a 16% decrease in its fourth-quarter inventory, resulting in a 66-day gross supply. The company says it expects F-150 inventory to be lower in the first half of the year, and the analysts at Cox Automotive are also seeing signs of this shift.
“Our data does suggest, generally, that F-150 inventory is tighter now than in recent memory. Simply looking at the first three quarters of 2025 (Jan. to Sept.), F-150 inventory was typically in the 115K unit neighborhood — that was the estimated total available F-150s on dealer lots across the U.S.,” Cox Automotive’s Mark Schirmer told TheStreet.
That number has dropped about 22% to 90K since the fourth quarter.
So what does this mean for the consumer?
“I suspect buyers will see some upward price pressure there,” Schirmer said. “As our former chief economist Jonathan Smoke was consistently telling us, ‘Inventory is the clearest signal of where pricing is headed, because supply conditions ultimately determine pricing power.'”
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