A year after taking effect, the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration are starting to reveal their true cost. An analysis by Automotive News, based on automaker financial reports available through mid-March 2026, shows the total bill has now surpassed $35.4 billion USD.
Trump’s tariffs have cost the auto industry at least $35.4 billion since 2025.
Toyota is the hardest-hit automaker, with an estimated $9.1 billion impact on its fiscal year 2026.
Detroit’s Big Three — GM, Ford, and Stellantis — collectively absorbed $6.5 billion in 2025.
The scale of the costs varies widely depending on how much of each automaker’s U.S. lineup is sourced from abroad and where the parts used in North American plants come from.
Toyota, whose supply chain is heavily rooted in Japan, takes the hardest hit, with an estimated $9.1 billion impact on its fiscal year ending March 31. Detroit’s Big Three come out relatively better, with a combined $6.5 billion in losses for all of 2025. BMW, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Subaru, and Volkswagen are all among the automakers that have reported or projected tariff-related costs exceeding $1 billion USD.
As a reminder on the rates currently in place: vehicles imported from the European Union, Japan, and South Korea are subject to a 15 percent duty. Models built in Canada or Mexico under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) rules face a 25 percent tariff on the value of their non-U.S. content. Imported steel and aluminum are taxed at 50 percent, and the 100 percent tariff on Chinese-built electric vehicles, a holdover from the Biden administration, remains in effect.
For much of the first year, the dominant strategy among automakers was to absorb the added costs rather than pass them on to customers through higher prices. “Raising prices based on what was believed to be a temporary situation didn’t make a lot of sense in this competitive market,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president at AutoForecast Solutions.
Some automakers told us, off the record, that they planned to absorb tariff-related costs for a set period — six months, a year, and so on. That defensive posture has its limits. Data from analytics firm Catalyst IQ, tracking new-vehicle pricing from the third quarter of 2025 to February 2026, confirms that price increases are filtering through to retail, particularly for vehicles assembled outside the United States.
Long-term planning remains a headache. A full year in, automakers still don’t know which tariffs are permanent. “The administration has just not been very clear or consistent on what stays, what goes up, what comes down, or what gets added,” said Dan Hearsch, global co-leader of the automotive practice at AlixPartners.
More troubling still, one automaker we spoke with described not just frustration, but outright confusion over the logic of U.S. trade policy. “They want us to build in the United States to support American manufacturing — but our American plants still have to pay duties on the parts used to build vehicles there. It makes no sense,” said the automaker’s head of planning, who asked not to be identified.
That uncertainty is complicating investment decisions, especially given that relocating production to the United States is a lengthy process. GM has announced it will shift assembly of its next-generation Buick compact SUV from China to Kansas by 2028, but few automakers are ready to commit to moves of that scale until the rules of the game are clearer.
On top of all this, the industry is also dealing with nearly $70 billion USD in restructuring costs tied to electric vehicles, whose sales in the United States have fallen well short of expectations. The industry is effectively managing two crises at once, with no clear regulatory safety net in sight.
If the situation continues, the entire auto industry could find itself in a full-blown crisis, with significant economic consequences well beyond the factory floor.
