NAFTA, the USMCA, and Ford Motor Company: An Exploratory Comparison of Cost of Revenue Before and After Trade-Agreement Implementation

Abstract

This study examines whether Ford Motor Company’s reported cost of revenue differed between periods surrounding implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Inflation-adjusted annual cost-of-revenue observations were assembled from Bloomberg for windows surrounding each agreement and compared using one-way analysis of variance. In the NAFTA comparison, the post-agreement mean exceeded the pre-agreement mean by 10,643.44 in the reported units, and the difference was statistically significant in the original analysis (two-tailed p = .011). In the USMCA comparison, the post-agreement mean exceeded the pre-agreement mean by 2,018, but the difference was not statistically significant (two-tailed p = .811). These results do not establish that either trade agreement caused changes in Ford’s costs. Rather, they show that the expected reduction in company-level cost of revenue is not evident in these descriptive pre/post comparisons. The study contributes a company-level perspective to research on North American trade policy while demonstrating the interpretive limits of using a single accounting outcome and short, unequal policy windows. Implications for trade-policy evaluation and directions for stronger longitudinal research are discussed.