Trump May Keep 25% Tariff On Japanese Cars

Happy Monday! It’s June 30, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at the future of U.S. tariffs on Japan, as well as some less-than-stellar signs for Nissan’s future. We’ll also look at China’s magnet exports, as well as a new NHTSA investigation into Jaguar Land Rover

Tariffs on cars coming into the U.S. have long been threatened by the Trump administration, but their implementation has been on pause during a negotiation period. Now, that period is almost up, and Japan doesn’t seem to have a deal in place. From Automotive News:

President Donald Trump says time is almost up for “Mr. Japan” to broker a trade deal and that he may simply dictate that the 25 percent tariff on its automobiles stay put.

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“I want to send letters. That’s the end of the trade deal,” Trump said of his plans in a July 29 interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “I could send one to Japan: ‘Dear Mr. Japan, here’s the story. You’re going to pay a 25 percent tariff on your cars.'”

Trump was speaking ahead of the July 9 deadline for his administration’s 90-day pause on the implementation of country-specific tariffs, a set of duties separate from the automotive ones.

Setting aside the absolute industry-crushing fallout of placing a 25% tariff on the home country of the world’s largest automaker, do we think the Japanese government has actually had the President of the United States talking to a guy named “Mr. Japan” through these negotiations? Shigeru Ishiba is doing the actual negotiations with American officials, but maybe they’re putting Trump on the line with a guy named David Japan just so he can feel important. 

Companies generally like getting paid, but they also like having money. This is a real struggle for companies like Nissan, which need to pay other companies without actually spending money. The solution? Pay later, to keep cash on hand now. From Reuters:

Nissan Motor has asked some suppliers to allow it to delay payments to free up short-term funds, according to several emails and a company document reviewed by Reuters, as the troubled Japanese automaker scrambles to boost cash.

New CEO Ivan Espinosa, who took over in April, has unveiled plans to shed around 15% of Nissan’s global workforce and close seven plants as he targets 500 billion yen ($3.4 billion) in cost cuts over the next two years.

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The move would allow it to have more cash on hand at the close of the April-June first quarter and follows similar requests before the end of the last financial year in March, the emails showed.

It is not uncommon for companies to request payment extensions from suppliers to help free up cash. In a statement to Reuters, Nissan said it had incentivised some of its suppliers to collaborate under more flexible payment terms, at no cost to them, to support its free cash flow.

Ivan Espinosa’s tenure at Nissan thus far has felt a bit like a panic mode, rather than the enthusiast-forward era we’d hoped for. Maybe he’s just getting the house in order before coming out with a new GT-R, or maybe the cash really isn’t there for such a project. 

Modern cars are full of magnets. This is great news if you’re China, which produces plenty of magnets, but less great if you’re an automaker that isn’t on great terms with the country. China locked down its magnet exports earlier this year, but now it seems to be opening things back up. From Automotive News China:

The threat of mass shutdowns across the automotive supply chain is fading as Chinese rare earth magnets begin to flow, though automakers and suppliers say production plans still face uncertainties and a continued risk of shortages.

European suppliers have received enough licenses to avoid the widespread disruptions predicted earlier this month but hundreds of permits remain pending, said Nils Poel, head of market affairs at supplier association CLEPA.

The rate of issuance is “accelerating” and has risen to 60 percent from 25 percent, he said, but cases where the end users are based in the United States, or where products move through third countries like India, are taking longer or not being prioritized.

The United States isn’t the only country that can project power through trade deals, though China’s approach here has been a bit subtler than our tariffs. Just a nice reminder that everyone has to be on good terms, or things can go very downhill very quickly. 

Jaguar Land Rover has been in an odd place for the last couple years, restructuring and reimagining itself to appeal to a new era of luxury car buyers. While that’s all been happening in the foreground, though, the company’s prior cars have apparently been disintegrating beneath their owners’ feet. From Reuters:

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday it has opened a preliminary evaluation into 91,856 Jaguar Land Rover vehicles over the risk of faulty front steering knuckles.

The auto safety agency received reports that one or both of the aluminum front steering knuckles, which connect the front tires to crucial components such as the brake assembly, had fractured in the potentially impacted vehicles.

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The evaluation focuses on the 2014-2017 models of the Range Rover Sport manufactured by JLR’s North America unit.

This is just an investigation, not necessarily a recall, though it could turn into the latter eventually. If you own a Range Rover Sport, as I’m sure most of you dear readers do, maybe crawl under it the next time you get a minute. Make sure nothing’s cracked. 

No “One of 416 produced on a Thursday in red with the black interior and these three specific option packages” here. 

I spent the weekend camping off my motorcycle, which means it’s time for a bright summer vibes track. Happy Monday.