President Trump’s unexpected plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts being imported into the United States will not only disrupt supply chains. It will also fuel anger, alienation — and pressure to retaliate — among American allies across the globe.
Many of the countries most affected by the new levies, such as South Korea, Japan, Germany, Mexico and Canada, are already reeling from the Trump team’s wanton disregard for free trade deals already signed, and erratic threats to long-established security relationships.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said on Wednesday that Trump’s move was “a direct attack.” Other leaders reacted in muted terms, hinting that they were still considering how to respond, with another round of tariffs expected in early April.
“We need to consider what’s best for Japan’s national interest,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan told Parliament on Thursday. “We’re putting all options on the table in considering the most effective response.”
The tariffs, which threaten both American and foreign carmakers, increase the likelihood of a global trade war. A chain reaction of economic nationalism with tariffs and other measures — perhaps adding costs for finance and services — could suppress economic growth globally, spread inflation, and add rancor to already testy negotiations with Washington about security.
The Trump White House has made clear that it will use every tool of American power, including its military support and consumer market, to extract what Mr. Trump sees as a better deal for Americans. Economists argue that the potential benefit of more auto factory jobs could take years to show up in the United States, and they may coincide with losses in other industries. But for countries that have spent decades trusting America and tying their economies and defense plans to Washington’s promises, this feels like a moment of reversal.
American influence, long built on pronouncements about values and the shared riches of free trade, has hardened into what many analysts describe as “all stick, no carrot.” In the Trump team’s thinking, critics argue, American gains require pain for others — friends included.
“Everything is a status competition or a dominance competition,” said Andrew Kydd, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who incorporates psychology into studies of international relations. “I think this is characteristic of extremists of all stripes — everything is about exploitation and domination, and to think otherwise is to be blind or naïve.”
As a result, he added, other countries “have to take seriously the articulated goals, however alarming.” That includes threats to seize Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, plus demands for economic submission to tariffs that weaken the economies of allies.
The pressure to resist has already become a stunning addition to Canadian politics. On Wednesday, Mr. Carney’s campaign brought him to the bridge at the border with Detroit over which $300 million worth of auto parts cross daily. He unveiled a series of promises for the auto industry including a 2 billion Canadian dollar ($1.4 billion) fund to reshape it for a future without the United States.
“We will defend our workers, we will defend our companies, we will defend our country, and we will defend it together,” he said.
In Asia, officials had hoped for softer tariff treatment based on factories already being built in the United States at great expense. “We invest in America, employ people, and pay the highest wages,” Mr. Ishiba said.
And yet, at a moment when economic and military threats seem to be converging for Japan, analysts said that his hands are tied: Because inflation is rising with a weakened Japanese yen, Japan simply cannot afford a trade spat that drives up consumer prices even further. Nor is battling the tariffs even Mr. Ishiba’s top priority.
With a more militarized China on Japan’s doorstep, sending armed ships to assert its claims to disputed islands in recent days, the prime minister is most keen to get a clear commitment from Mr. Trump to defend Japan’s security. (U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo this week.)
So far, the Trump administration has sent conflicting signals to America’s largest Asian ally. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reaffirmed support for Japan, the president himself has publicly questioned the two nations’ security alliance.
“We are very much constrained at this moment,” said Ken Jimbo, a professor of international politics and security at Keio University.
South Korea finds itself in a similar position: It has deepened its diplomatic and military dependence on the United States in recent years, as anti-Chinese sentiment rose among its people, and to strengthen deterrence against North Korea.
South Koreans’ fundamental trust in the alliance will survive the latest tariffs, in part because the penalties didn’t target South Korea only but also hit competitors, said Park Won-gon, an expert in South Korea-U.S. relations at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
But cars are one of South Korea’s biggest export items, totaling $71 billion last year, and the United States was the destination for nearly half. The government called for a meeting with the car industry on Thursday to discuss a response to Trump’s tariffs.
On news portals from the left and right, many Koreans expressed outraged that they were landing just a few days after Hyundai Motor, a South Korean conglomerate, said it would invest $21 billion to expand manufacturing in the United States.
William Choong, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said that for many Asian allies, it feels like the United States is a police commander “that sticks his Glock down the back of the junior cop — i.e. regional countries — and starts shaking him down for cash and other valuables.”
European officials and analysts have been flirting with similar sentiments. The White House’s about face on Ukraine, pressuring for peace while letting Russia win concessions, has spurred a panic over security. After the leak of a private chat among White House officials that called Europe “pathetic,” fury has risen, and the pressure to respond has been intensifying.
Europe is already facing the added expense of a military buildup. Automotive tariffs could squeeze an industry that has been struggling, especially in Germany.
European Union officials said recently that they would place new tariffs on many American goods — from lingerie to soy products — by mid-April. More potent measures could follow. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said Wednesday that the European Union would “continue to seek negotiated solutions, while safeguarding its economic interests.”
Ian Austen contributed reporting from Windsor, Ontario; Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul; Martin Fackler from Tokyo; Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City, Mexico; Jeanna Smialek from Brussels, and Melissa Eddy from Berlin.
