EDITORIAL: Wrecking Ball

It is a fool's errand to make timely comments - in print! - about our current political turmoil. Even so, it feels important to place a marker in the sand to note the ongoing political reign of tariff threats, the upheaval potential of a demolished regulatory state affecting road and vehicle safety, and the damage that cuts to electric vehicle support might do to American automakers attempting to keep technological pace with their global automaker peers. It's a lot.

The mainstream press is reporting the broad strokes of the industry's reaction to the new president. Ford CEO Jim Farley said Trump's erratic threats and changes are adding “a lot of cost and a lot of chaos” to the automotive industry and that a 25% tariff would “blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we've never seen.” Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan said that profitability would suffer under any tariffs, whether those are the general 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico (now seemingly canceled after Trump backed down), just-announced 10% tariffs on steel and aluminum or some yet-to-be-spoken-aloud new tariff concept. Industry analyst Sam Fiorani told The Independent the obvious truth that “raising the price of what is among the most important components of the vehicle is only going to raise the prices of an already expensive product.”