General Motors CFO Paul Jacobson said on Wednesday at a Barclays conference that if U.S. tariffs became permanent, the company would have to consider moving plants, but also said it had not made those decisions yet.
GM and other automakers are closely monitoring how tariffs on vehicles and parts from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere will impact their business. GM executives have said they’ve been moving more inventory across borders ahead of tariffs potentially hitting and are evaluating other actions to mitigate costs on the business.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he will introduce a 25 percent tariff on automobiles starting in April. He also introduced and then delayed for a month 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada.
“If they become permanent, then there’s a whole bunch of different things that you have to think about in terms of, where do you allocate plants, and do you move plants, etc.,” Jacobson said at the Barclays conference. “Those are questions that just don’t have an answer today, because I can tell you, as much as the market is pricing in a big impact of tariffs and lost profitability, think about a world where, on top of that, we’re spending billions of capital, and then it ends.”
