Long gone are the days when an imported car meant a foreign car. And no company proves the point more than General Motors.

The Detroit stalwart imported more cars into the US last year than any other automaker, even Japan’s Toyota. Nearly half of the vehicles GM sold in the US last year — 1.23 million autos — were built abroad, according to researcher GlobalData. That includes many of its most affordable models, like the Korean-made Chevrolet Trax and Buick Envista SUVs, whose low prices depend on cheap production.

Now, no American automaker stands to lose more in President Donald Trump’s trade war. Trump has slapped 25% tariffs on imported autos, arguing it’s a response to unfair barriers that American-made cars face in other countries. But the tariffs have GM scrambling to manage levies of up to $5 billion this year, which despite some offsets will slash 2025 earnings before interest and taxes by about 20%, the company estimates.

Other US automakers — the very companies Trump says he’s trying to help — will suffer as well, if not quite as much as GM. Except for Tesla and startups like Lucid and Rivian, they all build cars elsewhere to sell in the US. Ford on Monday said it is facing a $2.5 billion tariff hit this year, which it aims to offset with $1 billion in cost savings.

“It used to be that when you bought a Toyota, it was made in Japan and when you bought a Chevy, it was made here in the US,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “Now, some Toyotas are made in Japan and some are made in the US. And if you buy a Chevy, it might have been made overseas.” 

Read the full story here

— Keith Naughton in Southfield, Michigan

• For more, subscribe to Hyperdrive, Bloomberg’s newsletter on the future of the auto world.

Charted Territory

Reworking Chip Curbs | The US administration plans to rescind Biden-era AI chip curbs as part of a broader effort to revise semiconductor trade restrictions that have drawn strong opposition from major tech companies and foreign governments, sources tell us. The repeal, which is not yet final, seeks to refashion a policy launched that created three broad tiers of countries for regulating the export of chips from Nvidia and others. The US won’t enforce the so-called AI diffusion rule when it takes effect on May 15. The changes are taking shape as Trump prepares to visit the Middle East, where a number of countries including Saudi Arabia and the UAE have bristled at restrictions on their ability to acquire AI chips. 

Today’s Must Reads

• The US president announced a trade pact with the UK.
• Trump said he’s unwilling to preemptively lower tariffs on China in order to unlock more substantive negotiations with Beijing. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is working with US legislators on outbound investment rules for China.
• Maersk, the Danish container giant, lowered its forecast for the global transport market rattled by Trump’s trade war.
• Ford is boosting sticker prices on models it builds in Mexico by as much as $2,000 even after its CEO promised to hold the line on pricing.
• Vietnam said it wants its companies to buy more high-value US imports in large volumes and at a stable pace, reaffirming its opening line on trade talks.
• Steven Madden pulled its outlook and raises prices, with its CEO highlighting “meaningful near-term headwinds” from tariffs.
• Danish jewelry company Pandora ruled out moving production to the US and will instead use price increases to mitigate the impact from levies.

Host Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg’s head of government and economics, speak with historian and commentator Niall Ferguson and CNN host and author Fareed Zakaria at the Milken Global Conference about Trump’s economic worldview and how it stacks up against reality. They both argue that the US hasn’t hollowed itself out over the past three decades, as the US president’s rhetoric suggests.

Listen here and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the Bloomberg Terminal

• Germany’s industry finished the first quarter with a notable production rise in March but the near-term prospects are bleak, says Bloomberg Economics.
• For Bloomberg Economics trade analysis: BECO MODELS TRADE
• Click here for Bloomberg Intelligence’s Tariff Matrix.
• Run SPLC after an equity ticker on Bloomberg to show critical data about a company's suppliers, customers and peers.
• Use the AHOY function to track global commodities trade flows.
• See DSET CHOKE for a dataset to monitor shipping chokepoints. 
• For freight dashboards, see BI RAIL, BI TRCK and BI SHIP and BI 3PLS
• Click HERE for automated stories about supply chains.
• On the Bloomberg Terminal, type NH FWV for FreightWaves content.
• See BNEF for BloombergNEF’s analysis of clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials, and commodities.

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