Jaguar Land Rover reboots US car exports despite tariff woes
Jaguar Land Rover has begun sending cars to the US again after halting shipping on the back of President Donald Trump’s trade war.
The first batch of vehicles headed to the US in nearly a month shipped out from the UK on Wednesday, as first reported by The Times.
The British firm paused deliveries across the Atlantic on April 7 after Trump announced a 25 per cent levy on vehicles manufactured overseas.
JLR has not issued a comment on the move to restart exports. A spokesman for the company told The Times: “The US is an important market for JLR’s luxury brands and 25 per cent tariffs on autos remain in place.
“As we work to address the new US trading terms with our business partners, we are enacting our planned short-term actions, as we develop our mid to long-term plans. We will give a further update in our full-year results in May.”
Headache continues for carmakers
Trump’s surprise 90-day pause on his ‘Liberation Day’ levies sent markets booming last month.
The 25 per cent tariff on car imports were not included in the pause providing little respite for the global automaker industry.
Trump announced a set of relief measures on Tuesday, which enabled carmakers to pay less in import taxes for foreign parts.
Several firms refrained from providing guidance for the year ahead after the uncertainty triggered from Trump’s tariffs. This included Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and most recently Chevrolet owner General Motors on Tuesday.
“The difficulty for the automotive space is tariffs have been ladled on top of an existing soup of problems which were already proving difficult to digest,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said.
The tariff drama comes amidst an ongoing headache from the transition to electric vehicles (EV), which has made it difficult for manufacturers to make long-term plans against a backdrop of ever-changing policy.