Trump metals tariffs to cost Ford $1 billion in profits, says Ford CEO

Steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost Ford Motor about $1 billion in profits, its chief executive officer stated on Wednesday, where as Honda Motor stated higher steel costs have brought “hundreds of millions of dollars” in recent costs.

“From Ford’s perspective the metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us,” stated CEO James Hackett, during a Bloomberg conference in New York, “The irony of which is we source most of that in the U.S. today anyway. If it goes on any longer, it will do more damage.”

Hackett did not mentioned what period the $1 billion covered, but a spokesman stated the automaker’s CEO was referring to internal forecasts at Ford for higher tariff-related expenses in 2018 and 2019.

Higher U.S. steel prices have led “hundreds of millions of dollars” in extra yearly costs, Rick Schostek, executive vice president of Honda North America, informed the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, even as over 90 percent of steel in its automobiles assembled in the United States is made domestically.

Honda also deals with retaliatory tariffs from Canada and China on lawn-mowers it constructs in North Carolina and transmissions made in Georgia.

Honda has not increased U.S. vehicle prices as a result of the increased costs but the issue is “certainly part of our thinking as we go forward,” Schostek informed reporters after the hearing.