European and Asian carmakers skid lower on US tariff fears
The US commerce department announced a new investigation into the automobile sector’s imports that could result in new US tariffs on European and Asian products.
Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross said there is “enough evidence that suggests that for decades the imports from abroad have eroded the US domestic auto industry”.
This new move in President Trump’s America First plan can be added to the 25% tariffs on steel and 10% tariffs on aluminium that started the trade tensions between the US, Europe and Asia.
Shares in BMW (down 2.63%), Daimler (-2%), Volkswagen (-1.6%), Porsche (-2.73%), Audi (-4%), Ferrari (-0.65%) and Peugeot (-0.58%) were affected over the potential impact of US tariffs.
German car-makers could suffer the most from the potential tariffs since BMW and Mercedes sell 15% of all their production on US soil. In the case of Audi, the percentage drops to 12% and in the Volkswagen, to 5%.
Concerns hit Asian carmakers, Toyota (-3%), Honda (-3%) and Nissan (-2%) listed falls in the Nikkei index, in addition to the falls of Hyundai (- 3%) and Kia (-3%) in the South Korean KRX.
On the other hand, American companies such as Tesla, General Motors and Ford, which will not be affected by the potential US tariffs. All of them rebound close to 1% in pre-market trading.