President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to relax some of his 25 per cent tariffs on autos and auto parts, the White House said, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.
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Carmakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices, reduce sales and make US production less competitive worldwide. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Tuesday briefing that Trump would sign the order later in the day but declined to provide details on the order.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who joined Leavitt at the White House briefing, said the goal was to enable carmakers to create more domestic manufacturing jobs.
“President Trump has had meetings with both domestic and foreign auto producers, and he’s committed to bringing back auto production to the US,” Bessent said. “So we want to give the automakers a path to do that, quickly, efficiently and create as many jobs as possible.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the order involves changes in how the import taxes would be enforced to prevent multiple tariffs from being charged on foreign-made vehicles and reducing tariffs on parts imported to make autos domestically. The changes would also be retroactive.
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