New York
CNN
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The Trump administration is threatening a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday — a move that would almost immediately impact car dealerships and factories in the United States.
The tariffs would add a minimum of thousands of dollars to the cost of cars, according to experts. And not just cars that are assembled in those two countries and shipped to the United States, but also cars built at American auto plants, all of which have Canadian and Mexican parts that can not easily be replaced.
President Donald Trump had argued on the campaign trail that tariffs are the only way to save the American auto industry, even though automakers are reporting record, or near-record, profits without them. But what is clear is that tariffs could upend the production of vehicles across the continent and put the price of cars, already near record highs, out of reach for many buyers.
Car factories could start slowing down — or even shutting down — in relatively short order, Michael Robinet, vice president of forecast strategy at S&P Global Mobility, told CNN last week. That’s because even if a car is assembled in the United States, every vehicle has parts imported from Mexico and Canada that would be subject to the tariffs, raising production costs. There simply is no such thing as an all-American…