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Faced with tariffs introduced by President Trump on cars, steel and aluminum, Europe’s carmakers are pessimistic about the future.
April 30, 2025Updated 12:37 p.m. ET
European carmakers, including Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Volkswagen, said Wednesday that the chaos and upheaval caused by the tariffs introduced by President Trump had left them struggling to assess the impact and unable to plan for the future.
After years of sluggish demand and high inflation, Europe’s carmakers headed into 2025 with a raft of new battery-powered models and high hopes that they would lure back customers.
Instead, they are faced with global uncertainty surrounding supply chains and customer demand, set off by Mr. Trump’s decision to impose 25 percent tariffs on all cars, steel and aluminum coming into the United States.
On Wednesday, Mercedes-Benz suspended its financial forecasts for 2025, as did Stellantis, which includes Fiat, Peugeot and Opel among its brands in Europe, and Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep in the United States.
“The current volatility with regard to tariff policies, mitigation measures and resulting potential direct and indirect effects in particular on customer behavior and demand is too high to reliably assess the business development for the remainder of the year,” Mercedes-Benz said in a statement on Wednesday.
Stellantis cited “the evolution of customs tariffs, as well as the difficulty in predicting their potential impacts on the market and the competitive landscape” for its decision.
