It's Happening: Trump Administration Confirms Tariffs

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

The Trump administration has confirmed that tariffs levied against goods built in Canada, China, and Mexico will begin tomorrow.


The tariffs will be 25 percent on goods from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent on goods from China.

We've already told you that there's a good chance it leads to new cars and auto parts costing more -- and at least one automaker has a plan in place.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the motivation behind the moves involves drugs and deportees.

From the New York Times:

Ms. Leavitt said the president had chosen to impose tariffs because the three countries “have all enabled illegal drugs to pour into America.”
“The amount of fentanyl that has been seized at the southern border in the last few years alone has the potential to kill tens of millions of Americans,” she said. “And so the president is intent on doing this.”

We'll see what the economic impacts are, but the consensus seems to be "not good."

More from the Times:

The tariffs are likely to initiate the kind of disruptive trade wars seen in Mr. Trump’s first term, but at a much larger scale.
Mexico, China and Canada account for more than a third of the goods and services imported to or bought from the United States, supporting tens of millions of American jobs.
All three governments have promised to answer Mr. Trump’s levies with tariffs of their own on U.S. exports, including Florida orange juice, Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky peanut butter.
The tariffs will immediately raise costs for the importers who bring products across the border. In the nearer term, that could disrupt supply chains and lead to product shortages, if importers choose not to pay the cost of the tariff. And in the longer run, companies may choose to pass the cost on to American consumers, raising prices and slowing the economy.

Buckle up, it's going to be an interesting ride.

[Image: Phil Mistry/Shutterstock.com ]

Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by  subscribing to our newsletter.

Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 149 comments
  • Shoulderboards I like most of what the Jetta delivers. A couple of gripes. Lose the red stripe under the front end, the 1980 ‘s left 36 years ago.A proper 6-speed manual transmission should at least be an available feature if the DSG must be standard.
  • Fred I like the digits for the speedometer, simple easy to read.
  • Fred My TLX has a trunk with no hooks for a net so I got one of those trunk organizers. Just a cheap one from Amazon. Something to keep the groceries from sliding and spilling all over.
  • Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh its not even 2026 yet ... recall
  • Mnemic Muscle cars are the only CARS still selling. Look up top 10 coupe sales from 5-6 years ago. Damn corvettes were outselling 2 door honda civics. Mustang, Challenger and Camaro were top 3 and by a huge margin, nothing else came close. With Charger being so huge there is room for Dodge to make a smaller coupe
Next