Trump announced tariffs of 25% for all cars "that are not made in the United States"

Donald Trump signed an executive order to set a 25% tariff on all automobiles manufactured outside the United States. The president signed the bill in the Oval Office, where he explained the objectives of the measure and also answered questions from the journalists present. Among the aforementioned objectives, he spoke of reducing the public debt and raising some $100 billion annually in new revenues.

Since last January 20, several investments from the automotive sector were announced. Among them are Hyundai and Stellantis, from where they already anticipated multi-million dollar investments, while also awaiting further investments from Honda, Nissan, and Volvo, among other companies. 

"In addition to spurring increased domestic manufacturing of cars and trucks, we expect that these tariffs will result in over $100 billion of new annual revenue to the United States of America," Trump added.

At the same time, the president clarified that, if there are parts of a certain car that are manufactured in the United States, these will also not be subject to taxes or tariffs. He also expressed his intentions for Congress to pass a law that would allow tax deductibility of interest payments on loans for locally manufactured vehicles.

"For too long, the U.S. auto industry has been beaten down"

From the White House they gave more context to these tariffs on social networks, where they pointed out that the local industry has been undermined by "a flood of cheap imports — threatening our domestic industrial base and exposing us to global supply chain vulnerabilities." 

In turn, they remarked that the trade deficit in auto parts is $93.5 billion in 2024 and that, over the past 25 years, 286,000 jobs were lost in auto parts manufacturing.

"In 2024, Americans bought approximately 16 million vehicles, but HALF were imports. Of the other eight million vehicles assembled in America and NOT imported, only 40-50% were American-made. Therefore, of the 16 million cars bought by Americans, only 25% of the vehicle content could be categorized as Made in America," they ended.