Trump's 25 Percent Tariff Hands the Car Industry Keys to China

We are now looking at a future where Beijing rules the road.

- David Fickling

If you had a vision of the future where the global car industry wasn't dominated by China, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That's because US President Donald Trump's promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports, announced late on March 19 Washington time, takes an axe to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that aren't already dominated by Beijing.

The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week will be Japan and South Korea. They account for a third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while still swept up in the tariffs, will be partially exempt.) They're also crucial to the development of electric vehicles, because South Korean and Japanese companies produced more than a quarter of all EV batteries in 2024, making them the only serious challengers to China's near-total dominance of the market.