By threatening the car, Donald Trump opens a new front in the commercial war. The US president announced on Wednesday a 25% additional customs duties about “all cars that are not held in the United States” as of April 2. In Germany, this announcement gives cold car manufacturers.
Around 640,000 vehicles are imported every year from Europe by the three main German manufacturers, Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes, to which the PAN -Europeo Stellantis group is added. According to a note from the Kearney consulting firm, US consumers could explode these vehicles made in Europe if customs increases announced by Donald Trump were completely reflected in sales prices.
“In the most worrisome situations, demand could fall by 29%,” Kearney observes.
For European manufacturers, this would represent a potential loss “between 4.5 and 13.7 billion dollars”, or 4.18 to 12.7 billion euros, estimates that the Kearney company is based on the average price of vehicles in US car dealers. As for European suppliers, inseparable links in the production chain, billing loss “would be between 1.9 and $ 7.3 billion”, or 1.8 to 6.8 billion euros.
“A fatal signal”
Taken in vice, European manufacturers will be forced to negotiate with the Trump administration or resort to China. “Or we make the flank of the American plan and keep access to the US market, or in contrast we will have to deal with the Chinese, which is possible, trying to open associations” and “create joint companies [co-entreprises, ndlr]”, Wednesday night, Sébastien Amichi, Kearney partner on Wednesday night, at BFM Business.
Especially because we already have to deal with the customs tasks of weight for Mexico and Canada, where European manufacturers manufacture an important part of their production for the United States in the total of the United States, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Stellantis sell 2.8 million vehicles in the United States. On the front line, the Federation of German car manufacturers deplored “a fatal signal for free exchange” in a press release published Thursday morning.
On the other side of the Pacific, Asian manufacturers tremble the same: Japan and South Korea represent 16% and 15% of total car imports in the United States, respectively. Asian scholarships dove on Thursday, overwhelmed by the values of the automotive sector.
Toyota treated
Japan, for whom the US market is crucial, is particularly vulnerable: last year, the car represented 28% of Japanese exports to the United States, or 1.35 million vehicles, for $ 40 billion (37.1 billion euros). World number 1, the giant Toyota sold 2.33 million vehicles in 2024, representing 23% of its world sales. But only 1.27 million of them were produced in their American factories.
Source: BFM TV
