Geneva — Japan may lose $17bn in automotive export potential within the US after President Donald Trump’s choice to introduce 25% tariffs on the automotive sector, the Worldwide Commerce Centre mentioned on Friday.
“Japan’s automotive sector includes 20% of the nation’s whole exports and nearly all of exports are headed to the US market. Now the flat 25% tariff on the sector that got here into pressure yesterday signifies that Japan may lose $17bn in export potentials within the US, in keeping with our calculations,” Julia Spies, ITC chief of commerce and market intelligence, advised reporters in Geneva.
Trump’s administration on Wednesday confirmed that his 25% world automotive and truck tariffs would take impact as scheduled on Thursday and that duties on automotive components imports could be launched on Could 3.
The tariffs cowl greater than $460bn price of imports of autos and auto components imports yearly, in keeping with a Reuters evaluation.
Slovakia, Japan and Honduras have been a number of the international locations extremely uncovered to US tariffs on automotives, the UN Commerce company mentioned. The US market represents a big share of those international locations automotive sector exports.
The ITC mentioned Japan could search to diversify its export locations for autos.
“Markets corresponding to China, Germany, the Philippines and Thailand collectively maintain unrealised export potential for Japanese autos that matches the estimated loss within the US market,” mentioned Spies.
Practically half the automobiles offered final 12 months within the US — the world’s largest importer of automobiles — have been introduced in from overseas, in keeping with analysis agency GlobalData.
The brand new tariffs on automobiles could price American customers greater than $30bn in increased car costs and decreased automotive gross sales within the first full 12 months, consultancy agency Anderson Financial Group mentioned in a report on Thursday.
The ITC is the joint company of the World Commerce Organisation (WTO) and the UN. Its purpose is to assist creating and transition international locations obtain sustainable human growth via exports.
Reuters
