Jaguar Land Rover was already in one of the more precarious positions in its history before Donald Trump took office as president, but the recent tariff announcements could throw a wrench in the gears of its recovery plans. The automaker, which moved just 430,000 vehicles globally last year, said it would pause shipments to the U.S. while it works through the impacts on its business operations.
The automaker said the pause would be temporary and emphasized the importance of American car buyers to its future, with a spokesperson saying, “The USA is an important market for JLR’s luxury brands. We are enacting our short-term actions, including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans.”
While still based in Britain, Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Tata Motors, an Indian company, and relies on global imports to produce vehicles. Trump’s new tariff policy includes a 25-percent duty on imported models, threatening to make the company’s already expensive U.S. imports even pricier.
JLR had already slashed most of its vehicle lineup in the U.S. and introduced a new design language as part of a significant turnaround effort, so it was likely that imports would have slowed this year anyway. Despite that, JLR still has a couple of months’ worth of inventory in the country that is not impacted by the tariffs, but that could extend a bit further at its current sales pace.
[Images: Jaguar Land Rover]
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