Trump’s Tariff Schemes Have Cost Automakers Over $35 Billion So Far

I know it’ll come as a major shock, but President Trump’s tariffs may not be working out the way he and his buddies had originally hoped. It seems that they have cost automakers at least $35.4 billion since they were introduced. Of course, tariff costs varied greatly by automaker depending on how much of its lineup was shipped into the U.S. from overseas and where key parts were sourced from.

From the looks of it, Toyota had the biggest tariff bill of any automaker. It seems that the Japanese company will take a $9.1 billion hit in its 2026 fiscal year (which ends March 31). The Big Three automakers fared much better, as you may have expected. They were hit with a combined $6.5 billion in tariff expenses in 2025.

Automotive News looked at automaker financial reports that were available through mid-March, including full-year tariff costs for 2025, as well as projections through March of this year, when they were available. Here’s what else AutoNews found and how these bills got so high so quickly:

BMW, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Subaru and Volkswagen each either reported or expect tariff bills north of $1 billion.

The costly tariff tabs come as automakers restructure their businesses to account for weaker-than-expected electric vehicle sales and the cancellation of the $7,500 federal tax credit that subsidized EV purchases. The cost of EV restructuring is approaching $70 billion, Automotive News reported.

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Automakers pay tariffs on vehicles they import to the U.S., though the rate varies by country of origin based on multiple deals the Trump administration reached with trading partners in 2025. Vehicles from the European Union, Japan and South Korea carry a 15 percent tariff, while vehicles made in Canada or Mexico that comply with North American free-trade rules are subject to a 25 percent duty on the value of their non-U.S. content.

Many auto parts also have tariffs. The import tax on steel and aluminum imports is 50 percent. A Biden administration 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs remains in place.

As they awaited more clarity, automakers largely opted to absorb their tariff costs, believing many to be temporary, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. That prevented widespread price increases some analysts expected when tariffs were announced, but created large hits to companies’ bottom lines.

It seems that automaker have had enough when it comes to absorbing prices, and that’s why we’re starting to see more and more price hikes get implemented. Porsche, for example, has already raised U.S. prices several times, and it’s even considering moving some production to the U.S. to bring down tariff costs. It’s not just Porsche, though. From the third quarter of 2025 through February of 2026, prices rose faster for vehicles built in Canada, Japan, Germany and Mexico than they did for U.S.-made vehicles. 

Tariffs are also changing automakers’ math on which models get imported to the U.S. Dodge discontinued the Hornet. Volkswagen is skipping the ID Buzz minivan’s 2026 model year (at the very least). GM said that it’s going to move production of the next-generation Buick Envision from China to Kansas. 

All of this led to North American sales dropping at the end of 2025. Automaker sold about 817,720 vehicles imported from outside North America in 2025’s Q4. That’s down 7.9% from a year earlier. As prices rise and wages don’t, I think the downward trend is set to continue.