ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Bob Slebonick, the longtime general manager and partner at Asheville Ford and Lincoln, is excited about President Trump’s tariff initiative. He’s confident it will help American companies in the long term.

“I think right now we’re seeing the anxiety from customers and managers and manufacturers,” said Slebonick. “And I think we just have to let it take its course.”

Slebonick said Ford Motor Company has just rolled out a new discount pricing campaign called “From America, For America” allowing dealers to sell cars at or below certain employee pricing where dealers get reimbursed on each sale.

“In our case, Ford was ahead of this, and they brought a lot of vehicles into the states before the tariff was even announced,” Slebonick said.

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Ford dealers have stock from the shipments as part of the rollout of the branding campaign, Slebonick said.

In a news release, Ford said, “Ford assembles more U.S. vehicles and employs more U.S. hourly autoworkers than any other automaker.”

The branding and sale enticed Bobby Taylor to come to the Ford dealership and put down a downpayment on a car.

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“If they lower the price, I like to have American-made,” said Taylor.

Taylor said his father and grandfather were Ford loyalists and he likes to continue the tradition.

Slebonick meanwhile said he is seeing a handful of customers with orders in on foreign cars coming to Ford to shop price in case the cars they’ve ordered at other dealers shoot up.

His dealership under the umbrella of a larger ownership consortium, has a dealership with Kia’s. Slebonick knows the manufacturer has halted cars from coming to the U.S. from Korea, where they’re manufactured until the company comes up with a plan to handle the tariff issue.

“Any vehicles coming into the country will be hit with the tariff for the price of the unit,” Slebonick said.

As for a ballpark tariff amount, Slebonick estimated it could run about $3,000. He predicted it could take several months before we see how tariffs impact car prices.

Late Thursday, Trump said he would be open to negotiating with countries on tariffs even though aides had stated earlier the President would not.

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Slebonick who was raised in Pittsburgh, said he hopes tariffs could bring back what he remembers growing up with in Pittsburgh where families had good-paying jobs at car plants.

“I’m glad to see that we’re trying to bring more back to our country. I remember seeing all my friends [and] parents had great jobs at factories producing vehicles,” said Slebonick.