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Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Aston Martin count steep cost of US tariffs
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of business, economics and financial markets.
Car companies around the world are laying out the cost of Donald Trump’s trade war, with Mercedes-Benz saying tariffs will cost it €362m (£313m) while German sportscar maker Porsche saying it would cost €400m.
British sportscar manufacturer Aston Martin Lagonda also said that it cut production and limited exports to the US to try to limit the financial impact.
Mercedes-Benz said the tariffs were “causing great uncertainty”, and had hit sales, which dropped 9% year-on-year to 453,700 units in the second quarter. Reuters reported that Mercedes said tariffs would cut profits by about 1.5 percentage points, equivalent to a tariff effect of €362m on the division’s adjusted operating profit.
Ola Källenius, Mercedes-Benz’s chief executive, said:
We achieved robust financial results in the second quarter given the dynamic business environment. The best response is to stay on course to deliver desirable and intelligent products, while keeping a tight grip on costs.
Porsche said the introduction of increased US import tariffs resulted in additional costs of €400m in the first half of the year as the company protected customers from price increases.
The effect of Trump’s trade war was also evident in the UK, where Aston Martin was forced to cut back production and run down stocks at US dealers in order to avoid the tariffs of 27.5%. Those have now been reduced to 10% under the UK’s trade deal with the US – although only for the first 100,000 exports on a first-come, first-served basis.
Adrian Hallmark, Aston Martin’s chief executive, said:
The evolving and disruptive US tariff situation was unhelpful to our operations in the second quarter. In response, we adjusted production and limited imports through April and May while awaiting confirmation of a trade agreement between the UK and the US, leveraging existing inventory held by our US dealers in that period.
We resumed shipments to the US in June in anticipation of a finalised agreement which came into effect on 30 June 2025. We continue to actively engage the UK government to urge them to improve the quota mechanism to ensure fair access for the whole UK car industry to the 10% rate on an ongoing basis.
The agenda
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9am BST: Germany GDP growth rate (second quarter; previous: 0.4%; consensus: -0.1%)
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9am BST: Italy GDP growth rate (second quarter; prev.: 0.3%; consensus: 0.2%)
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10am BST: Eurozone GDP growth rate (second quarter; prev.: 0.6%; consensus: 0%)
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10am BST: Eurozone economic sentiment index (July; prev.: 94 points; consensus: 94.5)
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1:30pm BST: US GDP growth rate (second quarter annualised; prev.: -0.5%; consensus: 2.4%)
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