US tariffs widen landed‑cost risk

Foreign automakers are warning the Trump administration that some of the cheapest cars sold in the United States could disappear if the North American trade pact is not renewed. (investinglive.com) (money.usnews.com) Nissan, Hyundai and Toyota are among the companies that have told Trump advisers a weaker or expired United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement would make entry-level models too costly to keep selling. (investinglive.com) (money.usnews.com) The pressure point is the tariff math. Trump’s current auto policy applies a 25% duty to the non-U.S. content of vehicles that previously qualified for duty-free treatment under USMCA, squeezing margins on lower-priced cars first. (investinglive.com) (brookings.edu) That turns landed cost into more than a freight-and-duty calculation. A car assembled in Mexico with compliant content, a car routed through Canada, and a car shipped from outside North America can now face very different economics in the same U.S. market. (brookings.edu) (commonslibrary.parliament.uk) The wider backdrop is a tariff regime that remains broad and unsettled. The House of Commons Library said on April 14 that the United States has imposed tariffs on most UK goods and that the resulting responses from trading partners have made the world trade outlook more uncertain. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk) Yale’s Budget Lab estimated on April 8 that the pre-substitution U.S. effective tariff rate stood at 11.8%, the highest since the early 1940s excluding 2025. It said the long-run U.S. economy would be about 0.1% smaller, or roughly $30 billion a year in 2025 dollars. (budgetlab.yale.edu) The 2026 USMCA review is the next hinge point. Brookings wrote that a successful renegotiation will depend on resolving auto trade rules and restoring business confidence across North America after tariffs on non-U.S. content changed investment incentives. (brookings.edu) Other governments are moving the other way. India and New Zealand signed a free trade agreement on April 27, and New Zealand’s foreign ministry said the deal will now move through parliamentary review before ratification. (mfat.govt.nz) India Briefing said the agreement gives Indian exporters 100% duty-free market access from entry into force and sets a framework for $20 billion in bilateral investment, while India will substantially reduce or eliminate tariffs on about 95% of goods imported from New Zealand. (india-briefing.com) For importers and finance teams, that leaves one immediate question unanswered by any single tariff line: whether the next dollar of cost sits in the product, the route, the rules of origin paperwork, or the politics around the next trade review. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk) (brookings.edu)