The Trump administration is preparing, for the umpteenth time in a short time, a correct the car on car duties. After shaking the sticks of protectionism with rates, now the carrot arrives: tax lifts and reimbursements to those who produce in the United States.
The White House wants to prevent the duties on steel and aluminum from adding to those on imported vehicles, also opening up to the possibility of reimbursements for what has already been paid.
No more accumulation and reimbursements for companies
According to what reported by Wall Street Journal and from Reutersthe 25% duty applied to cars imported since the beginning of April, combined with the rates on industrial raw materials, has fueled pressure on the entire US automotive supply chain. To neutralize these effects, the plan provides that producers who already pay the rate on vehicles are no longer subject to the duties on the materials used in their construction.
THE’retroactive effect It will allow manufacturers to ask for a refund for what has already been paid by the entry into force of the duties. A generous promise, but still to be written: The practical details are missingstarting from where the necessary funds will be caught. Everything will be managed at the federal level, with a bureaucratic process that promises to be anything but slender. A classic American compromise: concession with built -in quibble.
Transitional incentives to reorganize production
Sources close to the dossier report that the reimbursement foreseen for the rates already paid will be subject to a limit proportional to the value of the vehicle assembled in the United States: for the first year a reimbursement of up to 3.75% of the value of the vehicleThat will fall 2.5% in the second yearuntil it gradually disappears. The duties on the components will also be affected by this logic, but it is not yet known with what funds the refunds will be managed.
A time solution, useful for gaining consensus among industrialists without distorting the balance too quickly. The tariff pressure remains the tool chosen by the White House to push the productive relocation without immediately setting fire to companies’ budgets.
Duties also on the components: partial reimbursements for spare parts
Not just finished vehicles. The Department of Commerce plans to apply a similar mechanism also on imported car partsinitially subjected to 25% duty from May 3. The components installed on cars produced in the United States will entitle to a refund, following the same scheme to decrease adopted for complete vehicles.
This change aims to reduce the pressure on the manufacturers who, while maintaining American factories (such as Stellantis), still use foreign components. In the medium term, the political goal remains that of encourage the reconstruction of an internal supply chainwithout abruptly interrupting the commercial flows already in place.
The ultimate goal of Trump has never only been to weaken the commercial partners economically with the narrow on the duties, as much as to try in every way to bring entire parts of productions to the USA. This too will be one complicated movebecause on a practical level the United States will not have enough workers, given that the unemployment rate is very low, it stands at just over 4% (in Italy it is 5.9%).
Increase in prices and slow relocation for automotive
THE’Official announcement of the new measures It is expected today, Tuesday, in Detroit, during an event organized to celebrate the first 100 days of presidency, precisely in the state that embodies the beating heart of the American automotive.
Trump will speak on the outskirts of the city while, outside the spotlight, analysts are accounts: according to estimates, the new duties could swell the average price of a car up to 6,000 dollars.
The president thundered against any increases in the price lists, but reporting the productive chains at home does not resolve with proclamations. And then, not secondary detail, at the moment there is no car, not even the very celebrated Made in the USA pickups, built entirely with American components.
