A Pennsylvania car dealer broke the news to a Fox News reporter of the “dramatic” impact that President Donald Trump‘s tariff war with Canada and Mexico will have on his sales.
To sum it up in one word, the dealer said, “Radical.”
He spoke about how a truck that would usually sell for $80,000 has spiked.
“It’s $100,000 now, so he’s not going to buy the truck. It’s going to sit on my lot … and nobody’s gonna buy the truck because it just had a $20,000 price increase.”
The dealer added: “To me, it’s a 25% tariff, so that affects our parts that come from these counties and a whole bunch of our cars.”
The tariff war is driving up the cost of U.S. car brands since Canada and Mexico have a hand in assembling the vehicles. Vehicles from Europe, meanwhile, won’t be subject to the same price hikes — at least, not currently.
The dealer echoed what the head of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation that represents all major automakers in the U.S. except Tesla recently said.
“Most anticipate the price of some vehicle models will increase by as much as 25% and the negative impact on vehicle price and vehicle availability will be felt almost immediately,” said John Bozzella.
He added: ”You just can’t relocate automotive production and the supply chain overnight. That’s the challenge and the dilemma: auto tariffs in North America could end up increasing costs on consumers before jobs come back to the country."
Trump launched a trade war Tuesday against America’s three biggest trading partners, drawing immediate retaliation from Mexico, Canada and China and sending financial markets into a tailspin as the U.S. faced the threat of rekindled inflation and paralyzing uncertainty for business.
Just after midnight, Trump imposed 25% taxes, or tariffs, on Mexican and Canadian imports, though he limited the levy to 10% on Canadian energy. Trump also doubled the tariff he slapped last month on Chinese products to 20%.
Beijing retaliated with tariffs of up to 15% on a wide array of U.S. farm exports. It also expanded the number of U.S. companies subject to export controls and other restrictions by about two dozen.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country would plaster tariffs on over $100 billion (U.S. dollars) of American goods over the course of 21 days.
“Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense,” Trudeau said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
