Trump nails down heavy truck tariff details “essential for national and economic security”

Details regarding the heavy truck tariff have been outlined by President Trump and deemed “essential for national and economic security.”

Medium and heavy duty trucks will be subject to a 25% tariff starting November 1st, including Class 3 through Class 8 trucks. A 10% tariff will also be applied to all buses. Trucks exempted under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will remain exempt under the new tariff, but buses assembled under the USMCA will not. 

Manufacturers who assemble their trucks in the US using imported parts “may apply to the Secretary [of Commerce] for an import adjustment offset amount equal to 3.75 percent of the aggregate value of all MHDVs assembled in the United States,” according to the White House Press Release.

The tariffs are intended to “strengthen supply chains; bolster industrial resilience’ create high-quality jobs that will expand the skilled workforce in the United States and increase domestic capacity utilization and United States-produced market share for MHDVs, certain MHDVPs and buses.” 

“Imports of medium- and heavy-duty trucks, truck parts, and buses threaten to impair the national security of the United States,” the White House wrote, continuing that the tariff are helping in “securing supply chains essential for national and economic security.”

“For decades, heavy truck makers have rushed to kill good blue-collar jobs from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Gastonia, North Carolina, in order to pay poverty wages abroad while Wall Street makes a killing. That ends November 1st,” said United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain. “Our members lobbied and mobilized to save these communities, and made their voices heard in Washington, DC. We have pushed for action like this for decades, and we congratulate President Trump for delivering for heavy truck workers everywhere. Let’s keep going and rewrite our broken trade rules.”