Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on imports from a variety of countries, all in an effort to spur negotiations and convince manufacturing companies to shift production to America. In the automotive sector, these tariffs have caused their fair share of chaos as companies like Ford work to figure out ways to mitigate them, and that’s especially true of goods coming from China, which were recently slapped with 145 percent levies. Now, however, the U.S. and China have reached a temporary deal that will result in a big cut to those tariffs.
According to Automotive News, the U.S. will lower its tariffs on most imported goods from China from the current rate of 145 percent down to 30 percent, while China’s 125 percent tariffs on American goods will drop to 10 percent – at least, for the next 90 days, as the two sides work to hammer out a new, more permanent trade deal. At the moment, it’s unclear how or if these changes will impact automotive imports and exports, however.
“We are in agreement that neither side wants to decouple,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “We would like to see China open to more U.S. goods. We expect that as the negotiations proceed, that there will also be the possibility of purchase agreements to pull what is our largest bilateral trade deficit into balance.”
As Ford Authority previously reported, The Blue Oval opted to halt exports of the Ford F-150 Raptor, Ford Mustang, and Lincoln Navigator to China following the implementation of these tariffs, though it builds several other models domestically for that market. As for the Lincoln Nautilus – which is assembled in China and imported into the U.S. – it hasn’t yet been impacted, though Lincoln President Dianne Craig did recently admit that pricing could increase as a result.
No Comments yet