The White House Confusing Americans with his comments about car rates – Jalopnik

President Trump’s trade is about countries that export cars to the US have two objectives: they must lead foreign car manufacturers to increase American production, even if they have been production here for decades; And they are intended to “open” foreign markets for vehicles made in the US, a wrinkle in these deals, as is widely noted, that is a rate of 15 percent on cars imported from Japan, that makes vehicles competitive than in the US made of vehicles confronted with a 25 percent tariff on Imported Tarij.

Let us put that headache aside and concentrate on what the White House says about these objectives. As the AP recently reportedMichigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has again on his way to Washington in an attempt to talk to some sense of Trump about how much Agita these rates will cause for Detroit. In response, spokesperson for the White House, Kush Desai, said that Trump wants these deals to sell more in Japan, South Korea and Europe for vehicles in the US.

In 2024, the US exported fewer than 70,000 vehicles to Japan and South Korea; Those countries sent nearly two million to the US, many of the cars that Zuid -Korea has imported, were probably made by German and Japanese companies in the US – companies that clearly employ American employees in their factories. Europe brought in considerably more, with Germany, who led the leadership at just over 166,000.

The problem is of course that if there is a much higher demand for vehicles made by the US in one of these countries, local production instead of export would be the best choice. As it looks now, the figures are so small that exporting the production from the US instead makes sense because it neuriet factories. But to use South Korea as an example, correcting a trading balance of 1.5 million vehicles (that is the number of 2024) would require a huge new demand for American cars in the country. If that happened for Ford, for example, the company would build a new factory to prevent export costs.

For the record, the entire South Korean car market is just over 1.6 million vehicles, and the market narrowed last year, According to local reporting. It is therefore not going to double in response to Trump’s tariff agreement and knew the shortage, assuming that all that new entry into the US was made

The Japanese market has activated around 5 million annual turnover, and has fallen under that sign in recent years. The EU is an annual market of 12-13 million, where Ford is the only American car manufacturer with a meaningful market share after GM had sold its Opel/Vauxhall division in 2017. In the US there is a good sales year a good sales year up to 16-17 million new vehicles, and because the financial crisis, Detroit and the foreign companies that work here are to grow the sale of sales, the head of selling that turnover is not. That is why large pickups and SUVs are the order of the day – they strengthen the bottom line.

The only market in the world that has seen robust growth is China, and the story there is the success of domestic manufacturers, the rapid rise of EVs and the struggle of foreign car manufacturers after years of profitable joint ventures.

The result is that the White House confusing Americans by suggesting that Japan, South Korea and Europe have set up heavy trade barriers for cars made in the US, while we really have to deal grow Barriers. There are not enough new buyers of vehicles in these countries – which are confronted with aging and falling population – to support a remarkable increase in American exports. The White House will not leave the message, but it will disappoint those citizens who buy it when the export does not happen.