Americans buying cars will very soon be liberated from even more of their money than usual.
U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s 25% auto and other tariffs, timed to roughly coincide with his ¡°liberation day¡± announcement of so-called reciprocal tariffs, are expected to add several thousand dollars to the average price of a vehicle in the U.S. (not cheap as it is).
Besides the dollars involved, there is the unsettling, extreme rationale behind these tariffs with which to contend. Peter Navarro, Trump¡¯s uberhawk trade adviser, was asked recently about manufacturers potentially cutting jobs to deal with the costs of tariffs. His response to CNN¡¯s Kasie Hunt was astonishing:
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