Trump Quietly Threatens U.S. Automakers Over His New Tariffs
Donald Trump clearly knows his tariffs will hurt consumers.

Trump is holding U.S. automakers hostage by scaring them into not raising prices while he puts massive 25 percent tariffs on all of the materials they need to make their product.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the president told automakers at an event earlier this month that he would look “unfavorably” on any price increases after his tariffs, causing automakers to fear retribution unless they just grin and bear the incoming cost increases. He also told them that they should be happy and thankful for him ridding them of Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, and that the tariffs would actually just be “great.”
“You’re going to see prices going down, but going to go down specifically because they’re going to buy what we’re doing, incentivizing companies to—and even countries—companies to come into America,” Trump told the CEOs.
This is a huge contradiction. The president claims he’s trying to lower inflation and reinvigorate the domestic manufacturing industry while simultaneously making everything more expensive. Trump’s new 25 percent automobile tariffs will go into effect on April 2. Almost half of all passenger cars in the U.S. are manufactured outside of our borders in places like Mexico and Japan. Carmakers already have begun to stockpile new, completed cars to try to offset the tariffs until May.
“It is difficult to see how imposed tariffs over time would not have some impact on prices,” American Automotive Policy Council President Matt Blunt, who represents General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford Motor, told the Journal.
It’s unclear how the Trump administration will punish car companies that do indeed raise prices—something they’ve been forced into doing by Trump himself.