Business
The Problem With Car Tariffs: What’s an Import?
President Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico could be felt particularly acutely by automakers — and car buyers — because of the number of vehicles and parts that come into the United States every day as they head to market.
Over the last three decades, since the North American free trade zone was created in 1994, automakers have built supply chains that cross the borders.
U.S. car imports by country since 1989
Manufacturers achieve economies of scale by building engine and transmission plants that are large enough to supply a number of vehicle factories in North America. Similar thinking works for other parts, too — seats, instrument panels, electronics, axles.
“That harnesses the strength of each country, to the betterment of the companies and to the consumer,” said Sam Fiorani, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions, a research firm. “Vehicles would be less affordable if all the parts had to be made in one country.”
Ultimately a vehicle is considered an import when it is shipped to the United States after undergoing final assembly in another country. But because of how complex supply chains have become, it is increasingly hard to say which vehicles are American-made and which are imported.
The 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, a popular sport utility vehicle made by General Motors, is assembled in a plant in Mexico using engines and transmissions that are produced in the United States.
Nissan makes its Altima sedan in Tennessee and Mississippi; the turbocharged version of the car has a two-liter engine that comes from Japan, and a transmission made in a factory in Canada.
Then there’s the Toyota RAV4. Most RAV4s sold in the United States are made in Canada. The Canadian-made models use engines and transmissions that are built in the United States and shipped north — before the completed vehicles are transported into the United States for sale.
The Trump administration has not yet elaborated on how tariffs would be applied to components like engines that were shipped across the border and then returned to the United States as part of completed vehicles.
While the RAV4 is technically imported from Canada, about 70 percent of the vehicle’s components — as measured by their value — come from the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which tracks the place or origin of parts that go into vehicles sold here.
The Nissan Rogue S.U.V. goes the other way. It qualifies as a domestically produced vehicle because it is assembled at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tenn. But only 25 percent of its content originates in the United States. The 2024 version’s engine comes from Japan and its transmission from Mexico, according to data from the traffic safety agency.
Where America’s imported cars came from in 2023
The threat of tariffs has automakers fretting. “Let’s be real honest,” Ford Motor’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said at an investor conference in February. “Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we’ve never seen.”
On Wednesday, the chairman of Stellantis, John Elkann, said his company supported Mr. Trump’s desire to promote American manufacturing, but added that the company — whose brands include Chrysler and Jeep — felt that trade with Mexico and Canada should remain “tariff free.”
Number of cars produced in America of any brand
Over the last 20 years, the number of imported vehicles sold in the United States has remained relatively constant, with dips caused by the financial crisis of 2008-9 and the coronavirus pandemic. The largest source is Mexico, followed closely by Japan, South Korea and Canada.
During that time, the number of cars produced in the United States has fluctuated. Domestic production exceeded 12 million vehicles in 1999, but this figure plummeted during the recession. Since then, the industry showed a strong rebound as fuel prices stabilized and consumer confidence returned, though the production volumes never fully regained the numbers seen in the early 2000s.
For many consumers, where their car comes from isn’t much of a concern. Frank Krieber, a retired tech executive from Charlotte, N.C., bought a Chevrolet Tahoe a few months ago. He assumed it was an American vehicle — and indeed, it is assembled in Arlington, Texas. But slightly more than a third of its parts are made in the United States, and about the same amount come from Mexico, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“I don’t mind the Mexican content,” Mr. Krieber said. “If it was made in Mexico instead of Texas, I still would have bought it.”
A big rig crossed the center divider on the 210 Freeway in Irwindale on Saturday morning, killing one and injuring 30, authorities said.
The mass accident took place before 9 a.m. west of Irwindale Avenue, where emergency personnel arrived to find the truck had collided with several vehicles, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a social media post.
One person was pronounced dead at the scene and two were critically injured. Eight minors were taken to the hospital and 22 other crash victims declined treatment, the department said.
The California Highway Patrol temporarily shut down all westbound lanes of the freeway, diverting traffic onto Irwindale Avenue, before opening up one lane.
The CHP issued a SigAlert warning of traffic delays on the westbound lanes, with two lanes on the eastbound side of the freeway also temporarily closed.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Ford Motor Co. is suing a prominent Los Angeles lemon law firm for allegedly inflating their fees by as much as 7,000%, the company’s latest attempt to crack down on California attorneys who it says are exploiting the state’s unique law to protect consumers from defective cars.
Quill & Arrow, a personal injury firm that represents drivers suing over so-called “lemons” — vehicles with significant, unfixable manufacturing flaws — has long been a thorn in the side of Ford. Since 2021, Ford said its has paid them more than $100 million, roughly half in attorney fees.
That profit, Ford alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday, came from billing records that were “utter fabrications.”
Quill & Arrow used an overseas “army” of low-paid, non-lawyers to help file thousands of lemon lawsuits and then pretended the work was done by California attorneys, who billed as much as $950 per hour, Ford alleged in its complaint.
Ford claims that the bulk of the work was actually done by non-lawyers in countries such as Mexico and the Philippines, who got paid as little as $13 per hour.
Quill & Arrow was founded in 2019 by attorneys Kevin Jacobson and Jonathan Shirian, according to the firm’s website, which touts recovering $500 million in lemon law payouts. The partners called Ford’s lawsuit “nothing more than an attempt to silence firms who would dare to hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers.”
“It grossly mischaracterizes the facts and the claim that Quill & Arrow created fabricated attorney billing records is absurd,” the firm said in a statement.
California’s lemon law, considered one of the strongest consumer protections in the nation, allows drivers to get a refund or replacement of a broken car if the manufacturer can’t fix it. If the driver is not satisfied, they can sue.
If the driver wins, the law allows attorneys to collect their fees from the car maker — rather than take a percentage of the client’s winnings, as is common in personal injury cases. This fee structure, Ford argues, has turned the law into a bonanza for plaintiff attorneys. The longer the case drags on, the company argues, the more the law firm can reap in profit.
Ford alleges the firm intentionally slowed down its clients’ cases to drive up their billable hours, instructing drivers not to communicate with Ford and pushing them toward filing a lawsuit.
“California’s Lemon Laws are in need of reform and the courts need to exercise more oversight, given the fraud we continue to expose,” said Doug Lampe, counsel at Ford, in a statement. The law is “being blatantly abused by the lemon law plaintiffs lawyers, the bar is not policing its own and the courts need to monitor fee awards with far more skepticism and scrutiny.”
The cases, he said, “have become about the lawyers for the lawyers.”
Lemon law cases have exploded in California in the last decade from about 4,500 cases in 2015 to roughly 30,000 in 2024, according to an analysis from the Assembly Judiciary. These cases, officials warned, “are poised to cripple the entirety of California’s civil justice system.”
In 2024, the legislature tightened the state’s lemon law, requiring additional steps before a driver could sue. The bill seems to have put little dent in the caseload: Lemon lawsuits surged to record levels the following year.
Ford’s lawsuit marks the second attempt by one of America’s largest car manufacturers to go on the offense against lemon law attorneys in Southern California.
Ford sued a cohort of local lemon law firms in May 2025, accusing attorneys of collecting at least $100 million in “phantom legal fees” by billing for hours they never worked. The case, which was brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, alleged lawyers worked together to file a flurry of fraudulent cases with billable hours that defied logic.
A partner at Knight Law Group, an L.A.-based lemon law firm, once billed an “ostensibly heroic but physically impossible” 57.5-hour workday, Ford alleged.
Knight Law Group denied inflating their billing, calling the suit a “thinly veiled attempt to silence firms who would dare to hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers.”
A judge threw out the suit in March on the grounds that lawyers were protected under the 1st Amendment from being sued for the content of their lawsuits unless the case was proved fraudulent. Ford says it plans to appeal.
After Quill found about the Knight Law Group case, Ford alleged, Quill dedicated a team to “scrubbing” their own timesheets of “impossible time entries.”
Ranch dressing is having a moment thanks to the World Cup and Kraft is ready to meet it.
The company said Thursday that it is working on a “TSA Compliant Ranch” for those looking to travel with the quintessentially American condiment. The announcement follows the influx of social media videos showing international soccer fans sampling the dressing for the first time.
“Some visitors leave with souvenirs. Others leave with America’s favorite dressing,” Kraft wrote in a caption accompanying an AI image of a TSA-approved clear bag packed with ranch dressing packets posted to social media. The image showed the bag — complete with a luggage tag resembling a ranch dressing bottle — placed in an airport security screening bin along with other travel essentials.
Additional details will be announced later, the company said.
TSA has also leaned into ranch’s apparent newfound popularity among international travelers, providing some helpful tips (and warnings) on social media.
“If you’re visiting for a very large sporting event & you happen to discover RANCH while you’re here… pls pack it in your CHECKED BAG on your way home,” the agency posted on Instagram Tuesday. It also asked travelers to “avoid chugging your ranch outside security” lines.
“Who knew dip-lomacy could be achieved through addressing the obvious: ranch is the king of condiments,” TSA wrote in the caption accompanying its carousel of humorous ranch-related quips. “If you’re traveling within the U.S., make sure to keep your carry-on sauces to 3.4 oz or less and place any larger containers in your checked bags.”
“Some heroes wear capes. Others bring ranch,” it added.
According to 1987 Times reports, ranch dressing was invented by Steve Henson, who opened the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch in Santa Barbara in the mid-1950s with his wife, Gayle. The unnamed condiment originally mixed herbs and spices with buttermilk and mayonnaise and its popularity with guests led to it being jarred so they could take some home. The more travel-friendly powdered form followed.
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