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UK automobile manufacturing collapsed in Could to the bottom stage since 1949 after US President Donald Trump’s tariff warfare compelled Aston Martin and different British carmakers to halt their shipments to the US.
Automobile and van manufacturing at British vegetation fell 33 per cent in Could from a yr earlier to 49,810 models, figures from the Society of Motor Producers and Merchants launched on Friday confirmed.
Output declined for the fifth consecutive month, marking the worst month-to-month efficiency in 76 years, excluding when automobile factories have been shut down in the course of the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020.
British luxurious manufacturers, together with Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin, suspended vehicle shipments to the US from April after the Trump administration slapped larger tariffs on foreign-made automobiles imported into the US.
Automobile shipments to the US fell 55 per cent yr on yr in Could, lowering the US share of exports from 18 per cent to 11 per cent. Exports to the EU additionally fell 22.5 per cent.
These US shipments are anticipated to renew with the scheduled implementation of the US-UK commerce deal on Monday, beneath which Trump agreed to chop a 27.5 per cent American tariff on vehicles to 10 per cent for the primary 100,000 automobiles shipped from the UK every year.
“Whereas 2025 has proved to be an extremely difficult yr for UK automotive manufacturing, there’s the start of some optimism for the longer term,” SMMT’s chief government Mike Hawes mentioned, citing the commerce settlement and the latest unveiling of the UK’s industrial technique, which guarantees to carry down power prices by as much as 25 per cent.
The settlement with the US was introduced by Trump on Could 8 however automotive executives have expressed frustration with the pace of its implementation. Simply days forward of the deal taking impact, corporations have but to be told of the precise allocation of the quota system.
“It comes dwell on the thirtieth of June . . . so we’re planing to bill three months’ value of gross sales in a 24-hour interval,” Adrian Hallmark, Aston Martin’s chief government, mentioned at an SMMT occasion on Tuesday. “That’s complexity and dynamism.”
Hallmark nonetheless welcomed the deal, saying British carmakers have been now “much less worse off than a few of our European and non-European opponents”.
Even earlier than the US commerce warfare broke out, UK vehicle production had been declining because the trade struggled to fulfill the nation’s powerful electrical automobile gross sales targets.
Stellantis final yr mentioned the price of complying with the federal government’s “zero emission automobile mandate” was partly behind its choice to shut its Luton van manufacturing unit and consolidate its UK operations at its Ellesmere Port manufacturing unit in Cheshire.
Ford additionally blamed the mandate because it minimize 800 UK roles final yr in a wider European restructuring.
