A recent Autoline After Hours (2025) episode had the breathless title, “11 Car Brands That Tariffs Could Force Out of U.S. Market.” I would imagine that this episode got an unusual number of views on YouTube. But if you click into it, the discussion was considerably more measured than the headline.
Co-host John McElroy’s list of potentially endangered brands included those that currently import all of their vehicles: Audi, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Maserati, Porsche, Mitsubishi, Mini, Aston-Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and McLaren.
McElroy (2025) acknowledged that Audi had a number of potential options for tapping into the production capacity of the Volkswagen Group. That included a forthcoming Scout Motors factory in South Carolina and a Rivian plant in Georgia. Likewise, Mitsubishi could potentially draw upon its alliance with Nissan or even make a deal with Foxcomm. Meanwhile, McElroy noted that Fiat could be on its way out of the U.S. market even without tariffs.
What’s left are primarily higher-priced brands such as Porsche, Maserati, Jaguar, Land Rover Aston-Martin and McLaren. I assume that these brands would have the most headroom to increase prices if negotiations with the Trump administration don’t succeed in bringing down the tariffs.
The remaining brands that are more moderately priced — Mini and Alfa-Romeo — are marginal enough in the U.S. that tariffs could turn out to be a good excuse to put them out of their misery. Much the same could be said for Mitsubishi, which has been struggling for years.
In addition, all of this assumes that the current level of tariffs are kept for a sustained amount of time. However, today Great Britain and the U.S. announced an agreement that would cut tariffs on most vehicles to 10 percent (Irwin, 2025). And given that one fourth of Jaguar Land Rover’s entire production goes to the U.S. (Reid, 2025), it would make sense that the automaker would try to stay the course.
So while tariffs may pose major short-term challenges to most of these brands, at this point it is difficult to see any of them pulling out of the U.S. market unless they were already teetering on the brink. Why didn’t Autoline go with that news peg? I assume because it wasn’t nearly so clickbaity.
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RE:SOURCES
- Autoline After Hours; 2025. “11 Car Brands That Tariffs Could Force Out of U.S. Market.” No. 742. Posted May 8.
- Irwin, John; 2025. “U.S. to reduce tariff rate on most U.K. vehicles to 10% as part of trade framework.” Automotive News. Posted May 8.
- Reid, Carlton; 2025. “Donald Trump’s UK Trade Deal Could Secure Jaguar’s Resurrection.” Wired. Posted May 8.
The new UK trade agreement which saw lowered ‘tariffs’ on ultra high end British luxury cars amounts to little more than a waiver for his rich American buddies. It’s pathetic.
Trump has had a tendency to talk like a populist during election campaigns but govern more like a traditional Republican. However, when it comes to tariffs he has rejected the Reagan era’s free-trade philosophy in favor of the mercantilism of his 19th-Century idol, William McKinley.
There was an interesting moment at a recent Trump press conference, when a reporter asked if he was concerned about a major drop in port traffic as a result of his tariffs. Trump responded by saying that it was a good thing to put a stop to a trade deficit with China. However, he didn’t acknowledge the potential job losses to the likes of longshoremen and truckers — a goodly portion of whom reportedly voted for him in 2024. I wonder how that will play out.
The first post-tariff container ships from China are arriving and according to public radio’s “Marketplace” (produced by American Public Media of Minneapolis), the number of containers per ship. The first casualty of the tariffs will be the domestic toy industry as most toys are made in China. Mary Barra’s strategy of making Buicks and some Cadillacs in China doesn’t look very good right now. “AxiosMobility” offered a look at the global view of the cost of automobile / truck manufacturing:
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/06/trump-tariffs-cars-tesla-mexico-china?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosfutureofmobility&stream=top
BIG DEAL concerning the potential loss of brands to the US market. Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Maserati are already dead. Everybody but the brain wizards at Stellantis knows this.
Aston-Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and McLaren have limited sales to customers who, if they can afford to purchase those brands in the first place, can scrounge around their sofa cushions for the extra change to pay for tariffs. That leaves: Audi, Porsche, Mini and Mitsubishi.
(Although you failed to specify = Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti)
If Audi & Porsche want to sell here – they can build here by piggybacking on existing VW production facilities. BMW facility can be adapted or expanded to produce Minis (they don’t take up much room anyways)
Mitsubishi at one time had a US facility but BLEW IT by pulling out and selling it off. They can utilize the underutilized Nissan capacity to produce here.
The real loss, big picture, is the hurdle this places on makes of vehicles currently not offered for sale in the US. We won’t be seeing: Renault, Dacia, Alpine, Mobilize, Peugeot, Opel, Abarth, Citroen, DS, Lancia, Vauxhall, Seat, Skoda, etc. or any badge engineered variants of those makes for the US market anytime soon.
Gary, I didn’t list those other brands because I was responding to John McElroy’s list. I would also question whether any of the highest-priced brands are in any real danger if they are otherwise competitive. After all, as you point out, they have more room to increase prices than more popularly-priced brands.
Of the brands that you list that we won’t be seeing because of tariffs, a goodly number of them are from automakers with arguably too many brands. At least in theory, Stellantis could decide that it wants to re-establish Peugeot in the U.S. market by building here a platform that is shared with, say, Dodge or Chrysler (assuming those brands survive). Or VW could plausibly add Skoda production to its Tennessee plant.
I’m curious as to what VW will do with a previously announced effort to bring Cupra to the U.S. A recent news report suggested that VW management seems to view the current tariff policies as temporary so is continuing to plan for the launch.
I had to look up some of these. Most of the ones Gary mentioned were chased out of the country during one of the Bush administrations. The rest to the extent any American gives them a thought something Trabant owners traded up to. Mobilize is intriguing. Seems like something between time share and Uber and they make their own vehicles. I don’t know if their vehicles as built are suited to the American market, but some manufacturer with a full line and a nose for the Next Big Thing should pick up on it. The one on the list that breaks my heart is Lancia. When I was in my 20s a dealer had one of their road rallye Stratoses (Strati?) on exhibit and turned it over and man, it THUNDERED. Now they have some little badge engineered CUV as a placeholder for the name, I guess. Sort of like Chrysler that makes what, a minivan for their entire product line. Stellantis, the assisted living for formerly great cars.