U.S. automakers cool with Japan tariff plan
Trade Secretary Howard Lotnick said on Thursday that American automobile CEOs told him that he was cool with President Donald Trump’s new trade agreement ve and this could put lower tariffs from US companies in Canada and Mexico.
Lutnick, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, a group representing Trump’s plan to Japanese automobile manufacturers “Big Three” Detroit automobile companies can provide an advantage compared to brushing complaints.
Oman Oh, God, it’s so stupid, Lut Lutnick said, after asking for the criticism of the CNBC’s American Automotive Policy Council, “Squawk on the street”.
On Tuesday, Trump announced that Japan has accepted a 15% tariff for US investments in US investments, as well as an exporting of cars to the United States.
However, American automobile companies will be hooked for a 25% tax in cars they make in Canada and Mexico and will import to the US under the tariffs brought by Trump in April.
Shares of Japanese automobile brands Toyota– HondaNissan and Mazda Trump rose on news about the trade agreement with Japan – but US car manufacturers stole alarms.
“Any agreement requesting a lower tariff for Japanese imports without a lower US content for North -American vehicles with US content, a bad agreement for the US industry and US automobile workers,” Matt Blunt, President of the American Automatic Policy Council, is a bad agreement. He said.
On Thursday, Lutnick told CNBC that “PR People” was “Plays” on the agreement. Companies said they spoke to the CEOs represented by the group at the beginning of Thursday and they did not oppose the agreement.
“They’re very good, Lut Lutnick said.
He said he realized that US companies would be “a little bum” to see that tariffs in car imports built by Japanese fall from 25% to 15%.
However, Lutnick said that domestic automobile companies can move their production facilities to the United States and avoid paying tariffs to cars they built in Canada and Mexico.
“Come on, if you build it in America, there’s no tariff,” he said. “American manufacturers will do extremely well in America – as long as they build in America. You are building in America, you are fine,” he said.
Blunt did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for a comment on Lutnick’s words.
Trump’s tariffs have already damaged the three large car manufacturers.
In May, the GM released a full -year guidance, including $ 4 billion to $ 5 billion hits from tariffs. The company confirmed that this week’s tariffs cost $ 1.1 billion in the second financial quarter of 2025.
On Monday, Stellantis said he expected a net loss of approximately 2.7 billion dollars, which was partly caused by the effects of tariffs in the first half of the year.
