Automotive News (2025) recently insisted that a projected price tag of $188 billion over three years for tariffs “is too big to bear” — but hasn’t a clue about how to stop them. That estimate is from a Center for Automotive Research study of how much the U.S. auto industry would pay in tariffs in 2025-27.
“To put the cost into perspective,” noted Automotive News’ (2025) editorial board, “that gigantic number is more than the combined market capitalization of General Motors, Ford, Stellantis, Honda and Mazda ($178.7 billion).” The unsigned editorial went on to say that the cost was “not sustainable, helpful or absorbable, and it does nothing to aid one of the industry’s greatest challenges: vehicle affordability.”
For example, the editorial noted that one in six new-vehicle owners are paying more than $1,000 in monthly loan payments. This is “a more than sevenfold increase” over a decade ago (Automotive News, 2025).
Peter DeLorenzo colors in some additional details
Not to be outdone, Peter DeLorenzo (2025) argued that the tariffs are beginning to show their impact on the U.S. auto industry. He ticked off a list of production cuts and layoffs that “represent just the tip of the iceberg, as suppliers are upending or scrapping future plans altogether due to the capriciously unpredictable nature of the tariffs.”
Even more ominously, DeLorenzo (2025) expected things to get much worse. “I’ve been accused of being overly negative on the future of this industry, but frankly, I haven’t been sounding the alarm loudly enough. Suppliers are going to fall by the wayside, costing countless jobs, and the manufacturers will be forced to jettison thousands of employees too.”
DeLorenzo concluded by noting that “the most pathetic thing is that it didn’t have to unfold this way.” And, as regular Auto Extremist readers would expect, he unleashed his usual invective at the “current occupant of the White House,” who is “stuck with an 80s mindset on everything, and is wreaking havoc on an industry that he and his minions haven’t even the first clue of understanding” (original italics, 2025)
That sounds so bad that something must be done, right?
Nope. Neither Automotive News nor DeLorenzo offered any ideas for how to stop the tariffs. That’s despite the fact that the U.S. constitution gives Congress the power to establish tariffs (Bomboy, 2025).
Article I, Section 8 states: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, … but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States” (National Constitution Center, 2025).
It’s true that in recent years Congress has delegated to the president “when and how tariffs are placed on goods entering the United States” (Bomboy, 2025). However, Congress could act as a check and balance on those powers.
Also see ‘Automotive News staff struggle to transcend paper’s checkered past’
That isn’t likely to happen as long as Republicans control both houses of Congress. For example, Rep. John B. Larson (2025) of Connecticut recently stated, “If Congress wanted to push back against President Donald Trump’s tariffs, it could have done so at any time by voting to end the White House’s declaration of a national emergency, which, Trump claims, grants him sweeping trade powers. But Republicans have repeatedly ceded their authority over trade to the executive branch using sneaky and sometimes bizarre legislative maneuvers to avoid voting on one of the administration’s most controversial policies.”
As we have previously noted, the most likely route to rolling back the tariffs would be for the Democrats to take control of the House and Senate in the 2026 mid-term elections. Supporting such a move may be a bridge too far for an auto industry whose leaders — and media — have historically tilted Republican. If that continues to be the case, maybe they should stop complaining about tariffs.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Automotive News; 2025. “In our opinion: Tariff price tag of $188 billion over three years is too big to bear.” Posted Sept. 23.
- Bomboy, Scott; 2025. “How Congress delegates its tariff powers to the president.” National Constitution Center. Posted April 2.
- DeLorenzo, Peter; 2025. “Tick, Tick, Tick.” Auto Extremist. Posted Sept. 28.
- Larson, John B.; 2025. “Republicans Could Stop Trump’s Tariffs, But Keep Voting to Make Themselves Powerless.” Media release posted Sept. 18.
- National Constitution Center; 2025. “Article 1, Legislative Branch.” U.S. Constitution. Accessed Sept. 29.
Seems like much ado about nothing. Europe and Asia have long had tariffs against imported cars and parts and have managed to stay in business. Nearly every business in the US is subsidized in some way. We have had tariffs in place on various products since the 1700s, but suddenly people are finding them offensive. The problem is not the tariffs but the see-sawing about the numbers. It should have been sorted out and presented all at once. Instead the process has dragged on for eight months and nobody is able to plan around them.
Tariffs against Chinese vehicles are all that’s keeping European carmakers in business. Off-shoring was a bad idea but Americans feel entitled to cheap goods. The UAW has too accept some of the blame in this as well.
Don, it’s true that tariffs have been around since the 1700s. However, economic conditions have changed dramatically since then. As a case in point, it would take me less time to send an email to China than to walk to my mailbox. We live in an increasingly integrated global economy where, for example, parts for a car built in the U.S. may travel back and forth from Canada as many as eight times before final assembly.
I find it interesting how some folks have tried to normalize Trump 2.0’s tariff policies. U.S. tariffs are now at their highest levels since the dawn of the Great Depression. In other words, you’d have to go all the way back to Herbert Hoover to find a Republican president with merchantilist sensibilities that were in the same ballpark as the current administration’s.
This brings up the obvious question: When people voted for Trump in 2024 were they thinking, “We could really use a man like Herbert Hoover again”? My sense in reading the polls is that voters keyed more into Trump’s promise to lower costs. Which makes sense, e.g., cars had already been getting quite expensive before he jacked up the tariffs.
All that said, I agree with you that the administration’s process has undermined its policy goals. For example, why antagonize Canada by unilaterally announcing new tariffs rather than working through the established processes of existing treaties? That could have also given automakers and suppliers more time to adjust their supply chains. When it comes to statecraft, the quality of execution can matter a great deal.
You left out the net-net: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, passed during Herbert Hoover’s first session before the 1930 mid-terms, when coupled with the 1929 stock market crash, not only cratered the economy, but led to the contractions in the U.S. banking and world financial situation between 1930 and 1933. I guess we don’t learn much from our storied past, do we ?
The dirty little secret about writing is that something is always “left out.” That’s because the first rule of journalism is to agonize over what to boil down and what to delete altogether in order to keep a story at a manageable length. Of course, if folks want me to write a book I could do that, but you wouldn’t see daily postings. So which would you prefer?
In the case of Smoot-Hawley, I didn’t want to specifically talk about it because contemporary economists debate its impact on the Great Depression. In a way that debate is irrelevant to my larger point, which is that merchantilism subsequently fell out of favor with advanced industrial nations. The main countries that have still embraced it in more recent decades have been smaller, less-developed countries struggling to develop an industrial base.
This subject is way above my pay grade, but when companies start cutting thousands of jobs, I tend to think that the reasons they give for the job cuts might require another look.
Again, this entire subject is way above my pay grade, but large job cuts, well, not so much.
The way tariffs are being handled right now feels like a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” experiment. It’s as if a few people in the administration liked the idea in theory, but no one actually thought through how it would work or what it would mean for everyday Americans. What bothers me most is that Congress won’t push back or stand up for the people they represent.
A lot of the world seemed to have a collective “what on earth was that?” reaction when these tariffs were rolled out last spring. And the irony is hard to miss: several of the countries hit with tariffs immediately slapped their own tariffs on U.S. goods. That forced the government to rethink some of these decisions. Meanwhile, while American soybean farmers are waiting for help from Washington, China is turning to Canada and other suppliers. Once trade patterns shift like that, it’s not easy to get them back. I hope the government is collecting plenty of revenue, because USDA payments are going to be huge this year.
It’s worth remembering that tariffs are essentially taxes—taxes on our own citizens, communities, and industries. For a group that usually opposes tax increases, it’s strange to see some Republicans embrace this so enthusiastically. Take my industry, commercial printing. We buy aluminum printing plates from a U.S. supplier, but the aluminum sheet they use comes from overseas. Thanks to tariffs, our plates now cost 25% more. In a hyper‑competitive business like printing, we can’t absorb that. We’ve had to raise prices, our margins have taken a hit, and we’ve already had staff cuts.
Now, I’m not comparing our small, low million-dollars in sales printing company to multi-national enterprises as GM or Hyundai or Tesla or others, but the same principle will apply. Extra cost baked in to a product WILL reduce demand and it will have adverse effects on us all.
Remember the multipliers: when the economy is expanding, one manufacturing job can support seven other jobs. When the economy is contracting, the loss of one manufacturing job will lose 10 other jobs.
No one in Congress has the guts to stand up to the executive branch and this will continue to dog us until we collectively get smart and make a change. Why people vote against their own interests has puzzled me for over forty years…