When Congress revised the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July to preserve Ford’s eligibility for battery manufacturing tax credits, it arrived at the right outcome, even if the underlying reasoning remained largely unarticulated. The decision allowed Ford’s $3 billion plant in Marshall, Michigan to proceed toward its 2026 opening, but it also established a principle that deserves explicit codification: the relevant criterion for evaluating foreign technology partnerships should be ownership and control of domestic assets, not the national origin of licensed expertise. 

Congress should formalize this distinction by directing the Treasury and Commerce Departments to develop clear regulatory guidance distinguishing foreign ownership of strategic assets, which warrants restriction, from foreign licensing to domestically controlled facilities, which should be encouraged as a pathway to industrial capability.

This principle requires defense because the political opposition has not subsided. Critics continue to characterize the Ford-CATL arrangement as dangerously risky. Michigan Republicans seek to claw back state subsidies. A legal challenge sits before the Michigan Supreme Court. The July compromise was a victory for pragmatism, but absent a clearer framework, every future licensing arrangement will face the same ad hoc political gauntlet, and manufacturers will remain uncertain whether partnerships that........

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