Jaguar Land Rover halts car exports to US worth £6.5bn amid UK job loss fears
It is feared more than 25,000 UK car manufacturing jobs could be at risk due to the levies
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said it will “pause” shipments to the US worth £6.5bn as it works out how to respond to Donald Trump’s tariffs.
On Thursday (5 April), a 25% levy on all foreign cars imported into America came into force.
Trump’s “baseline” 10% tariff on goods imported from around the world came into affect this morning.
JLR, Britain’s biggest carmaker, which had sales of £6.5bn in America in the year to March 2024, made its announcement this morning.
The move comes after the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank warned more than 25,000 UK car manufacturing jobs could be at risk due to the levies.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the firm said: “The USA is an important market for JLR’s luxury brands.
“As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans.”
Last year, 16.9% of UK car exports, representing 101,000 units worth £7.6 billion, were shipped to the US last year.
Trumps tariffs could “completely destabilise the UK car manufacturing industry,” the IPPR said earlier this week.
It also claimed that staff at JLR and fellow British carmaker Mini are at risk of losing their jobs as a result of the tariffs.
The IPPR suggested UK should respond by capitalising on the transition to net zero and build on its “niche” of manufacturing “green planes, trains and automobiles”.
It added: ”The only way to secure transport manufacturing jobs in the UK is to “double down” on making sure the country is competitive in creating “zero or low emission transport products”.
The think tank encouraged the government to use its industrial strategy, which is due to be unveiled in June, to grow UK demand for these products.
It also suggested it could offer incentives on domestic-made electric cars, reduce VAT on public charging, and provide grants to low-income buyers.
Economist, Professor David Bailey believes the tariffs could result in car firms making production cuts and and reducing their workforce.
He believes the levies will impact the West Midlands more than any other region in the UK.
Mr Bailey, a professor of business economics at the Birmingham Business School, says the Midlands, where JLR and Aston Martin have car manufacturing factories, is the “number one exporting region” of cars to the US.
He added the UK government’s industrial strategy ”is urgently needed to help shore up the industry”.
People who live near a Jaguar Land Rover factory in Solihull in the West Midlands fear its 9,000 workers could lose their jobs over the import taxes.
Former automotive consultant Robert Mills told The Guardian: ”I’m appalled. It will kill Jaguar Land Rover here in the town.
”There could potentially be job losses because JLR export enormously to America. The knock-on effect is going to be enormous.”
Former electrical engineer Tony Rhea, who previously worked for Land Rover before he retired, fears local business could also be affected if there are job cuts.
He said: ”Everyone is affected. Right down to the café where they eat, the people who wash their overalls and even the people that maintain the robots, that’s all local.”
Exports of UK-made cars to the US surged by 34.6 per cent in February compared to the same month in 2024, according to industry figures.
Shipments also sharply increased in January (+12.4 per cent) and December (+38.5 per cent) as the US President made clear he was considering a sharp rise in the import duty on foreign cars.
Today, Donald Trump claimed 10 per cent levies on some countries will boost the US economy in his first statement since they came into force today.
He wrote on his Truth Social platform: “China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close. They, and many other nations, have treated us unsustainably badly.
“We have been the dumb and helpless ‘whipping post’, but not any longer.
“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic.”
World trading has been hammered in the aftermath of the president’s tariff announcement at the White House on Wednesday.
The FTSE 100 plummeted on Friday in its worst day of trading since the start of the pandemic, while markets on Wall Street also tumbled.
All but one stock on the FTSE 100 fell – with Rolls-Royce, banks and miners among those to suffer the sharpest losses.
London’s top stock market index shed 419.75 points, or 4.95%, to close at 8,054.98 on Friday, the biggest single-day decline since March 2020 when the index lost more than 600 points in one day.
The Dow Jones fell 5.5% on Friday as China matched Mr Trump’s tariff rate.
Beijing said it would respond with its own 34% tariff on imports of all US products from April 10.
Downing Street revealed today, Sir Keir Starmer discussed “concerns” about tariffs with Emmanuel Macron.
The Prime Minister and the French President talked about their “concerns about the global economic and security impact” of the new taxes, “particularly in South-East Asia” in a call on Saturday.
Starmer is also expected to spend the weekend taking calls from other foreign leaders about the tariffs.
It comes after he held discussions with the prime ministers of Australia and Italy on Friday where the leaders agreed that a trade war would be “extremely damaging”.
Issuing a read-out of their separate conversations on Friday, Number 10 said the leaders “all agreed that an all-out trade war would be extremely damaging”.
A spokesperson said the PM “has been clear the UK’s response will be guided by the national interest” and officials will “calmly continue with our preparatory work, rather than rush to retaliate”.
“He discussed this approach with both leaders, acknowledging that while the global economic landscape has shifted this week, it has been clear for a long time that like-minded countries must maintain strong relationships and dialogue to ensure our mutual security and maintain economic stability.
Japan’s Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, says he plans to hold a phone call with President Donald Trump “within the next week” to discuss 24% levies slapped on the country.
He also ruled out the possibility of Japan hitting back with retaliatory tariffs, saying: “We have all sorts of options, but what will happen to the global economy if we both impose retaliatory tariffs.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Monday to meet Donald Trump to discus tariffs he imposed on the country, according to Israeli officials and a White House official.
Ministers are still seeking to strike a deal with the US in the hope that it could secure some exemption from the tariffs.
Additional reporting by Press Association.
