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    Trump’s Tariffs Would Reverse Decades of Integration Between U.S. and Mexico

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    Ties between the United States and Mexico have deepened over 30 years of free trade, creating both benefits and irritants.When Dennis Nixon started working at a regional bank in Laredo, Texas, in 1975, there was just a trickle of trade across the border with Mexico. Now, nearly a billion dollars of commerce and more than 15,000 trucks roll over the line every day just a quarter mile from his office, binding the economies of the United States and Mexico together.Laredo is America’s busiest port, and a conduit for car parts, gasoline, avocados and computers. “You cannot pick it apart anymore,” Mr. Nixon said of the U.S. and Mexican economies. Thirty years of economic integration under a free trade deal has created “interdependencies and relationships that you don’t always understand and measure, until something goes wrong,” he said.Now that something is looming: 25 percent tariffs on Mexican products, which President Trump plans to impose on Saturday as he looks to pressure the Mexican government to do more to curb illegal immigration. Mr. Trump is also expected to hit Canada with 25 percent levies and impose a 10 percent tax on Chinese imports.A longtime proponent of tariffs and a critic of free trade deals, Mr. Trump seems unafraid to upend America’s closest economic relationships. He is focusing on strengthening the border against illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl, two areas that he spoke about often during his 2024 campaign.But the president has other beefs with Mexico, including the economic competition it poses for U.S. workers. The president and his supporters believe that imports of cars and steel from Mexico are weakening U.S. manufacturers. And they say the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade deal Mr. Trump signed in 2020 to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, needs to be updated — or perhaps, in some minds, scrapped.Many businesses say ties between the countries run deeper than most Americans realize, and policies like tariffs that seek to sever them would be painful. Of all the world’s major economic partners, the United States and Mexico are among the most integrated — linked by business, trade, tourism, familial ties, remittances and culture. It’s a closeness that at times generates discontent and efforts to distance the relationship, but also brings many benefits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    G.M. Has Plans Ready for Trump’s Canada and Mexico Tariffs

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    General Motors, the largest producer of cars in Mexico, won’t provide details on how it would react if President Trump imposes 25 percent tariffs from the two countries.General Motors executives are closely tracking President Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, but the company is not yet making any major changes to its strategy in North America in response to the threatened tariffs.The automaker has pulled together an “extensive playbook” of possible options but won’t put them in place “until the world changes dramatically, and we see a permanent level of tariffs going forward,” the company’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, told reporters in a conference call on Monday evening.“I won’t go into the details exactly but we’ve been preparing for that and want to make sure that we are prudent and don’t overreact,” he added.Mr. Trump said last week that he planned to impose tariffs of 25 percent on goods from Canada and Mexico starting on Saturday, Feb. 1. If he followed through on those plans, the tariffs would deal a big blow to G.M. and other automakers that produce vehicles and components in those countries, and probably increase the prices of many vehicles sold in the United States.G.M. produced nearly 900,000 vehicles in Mexico in 2024, more than any other carmaker, and most of those were shipped to the United States. Among them are the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks, as well as the Chevrolet Equinox sport-utility vehicle — all top-sellers and big sources of profit for the company. It also produces some Silverados and electric delivery vans in Canada.G.M. said on Tuesday that it lost $3 billion in the final three months of 2024, stemming from a $4 billion noncash expense related to a restructuring of its joint venture operations in China. The company’s revenue in the quarter rose 11 percent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Stellantis Will Restart Illinois Factory That U.A.W. Pushed to Revive

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    The United Automobile Workers union has been pressing the automaker, which owns Chrysler and Jeep, to revive the plant in Belvidere, Ill.Stellantis, the company that owns Chrysler and Jeep, said on Wednesday it planned to reopen a factory in Illinois and increase production elsewhere in the United States, a move that is likely to resolve several simmering disputes with the United Automobile Workers union.The reopening is also likely to help the company in its relations with the Trump administration, and is among the first big changes made by an interim management team that has been running the company since its chief executive, Carlos Tavares, resigned in December.“These actions are part of our commitment to invest in our U.S. operations to grow our auto production and manufacturing here,” Antonio Filosa, the company’s chief operating officer in North America, said in a statement.The announcement follows a recent meeting between Stellantis’s chairman, John Elkann, and President Trump, the company said. Mr. Elkann told the president that Stellantis, whose headquarters are in Amsterdam, aimed to strengthen its U.S. manufacturing base and was committed to safeguarding American jobs and to the broader U.S. economy.Stellantis, which also owns Fiat, Dodge, Ram and Peugeot, idled the Illinois plant, in Belvidere, in early 2023. Later that year, it agreed in a new contract with the U.A.W. to reopen it. In August 2024, the company said it was delaying the reopening after its sales and profit tumbled.The U.A.W. responded by filing grievances with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Stellantis was not abiding by the 2023 contract.Stellantis said on Wednesday that it planned to make a medium-size pickup truck in Belvedere, and that it would rehire some 1,500 union workers.The company also said it would move forward with plans to produce a new Dodge Durango sport-utility vehicle at a plant in Detroit. The U.A.W. had feared Stellantis was preparing to move production of the vehicle to Mexico, and the union had filed grievances on that issue as well.“This victory is a testament to the power of workers standing together and holding a billion-dollar corporation accountable,” the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We’ve shown that we will do what it takes to protect the good union jobs that are the lifeblood of places like Belvidere, Detroit, Kokomo and beyond.”The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In its statement, Stellantis also said it would make investments in its plants in Toledo, Ohio, where it makes the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator models. Additional investments will also come to an engine plant in Kokomo, Ind., the company said. More

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    Trump Is Said to Push for Early Reopening of North American Trade Deal

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    The president wants to begin renegotiating a U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico earlier than a scheduled 2026 review, people familiar with his thinking said.The Trump administration intends to push to renegotiate the U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico ahead of a required 2026 review of it, seeking to shore up U.S. auto jobs and counter Chinese firms that are making inroads into the Mexican auto sector, people familiar with the deliberations said.The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed in 2020, required the three countries to hold a “joint review” of the deal after six years, on July 1, 2026. But Mr. Trump intends to begin those negotiations sooner, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been made public.Trump officials particularly want to tighten the pact’s rules governing the auto sector, to try to discourage auto factories from leaving the United States, they said. They are also seeking to block Chinese companies making cars and auto parts from being able to export to the United States through factories in Mexico.Mr. Trump has also threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico, saying those countries are allowing drugs and migrants to flow across American borders. Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday night after his inauguration, he said he planned to move forward with the tariffs on Feb. 1.Members of the Trump team believe that Mexico has been violating the terms of a separate agreement to limit metal exports to the United States, and they are eager to show the Mexican government that they mean to take action against such trade violations, one person familiar with the conversations said.The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Mr. Trump was pushing for an early renegotiation of his North American trade deal. The three countries are required to meet to discuss the terms of the trade deal six years after the agreement went into force, but trade experts have expected the Trump team to speed up work on the issue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Defending Michigan’s Auto Industry, Whitmer Warns of Tariff Risks

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    Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addressed the Detroit Auto Show, saying that tariffs should not be used “to punish our closest trading partners,” like Canada.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a leading Democrat from a critical battleground state, on Wednesday subtly warned against President-elect Donald J. Trump’s tariff threats targeting Canada, even as she stressed her broader willingness to work with him on the cusp of his second inauguration.Her speech, at the Detroit Auto Show, offered among the clearest examples yet of how Democrats from states that Mr. Trump carried are seeking to balance fresh overtures to the incoming president with their staunch opposition to some of his policy proposals.Speaking at a convention center just across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ont., Ms. Whitmer described strong cultural and industrial ties between the two cities.Using tariffs as punishment, she said, risks “damaging supply chains, slowing production lines and cutting jobs on both sides of the border.”Ms. Whitmer did not mention Mr. Trump by name as she broached the subject, but he has threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Canada if the country does not reduce the flow of migrants and fentanyl to the United States. The Ontario Premier Doug Ford has discussed retaliation, including threatening to disrupt the electricity supply from the province to the United States.“I am not opposed to tariffs outright, but we cannot treat them like a one-size-fits-all solution, and we certainly shouldn’t use them to punish our closest trading partners,” Ms. Whitmer said, arguing that such an approach could embolden China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why Mergers of Carmakers Like Honda and Nissan Often Falter

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    The Japanese companies are considering joining forces to survive in a rapidly changing auto industry, but auto history is filled with troubled and failed marriages.The Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan are discussing a possible merger, in a bid to share costs and help themselves compete in a fast-changing and increasingly competitive industry.But a merger, even of two companies from the same country, is no guarantee of success, and the history of automotive deals is littered with failures and disappointments.Combining two large, global manufacturing operations is an incredibly difficult feat that involves reconciling different technologies, models and approaches to doing business. A merger’s success rests on getting ambitious managers and engineers who have spent decades competing with one another to cooperate. Teams and projects have to be scrapped or changed, and executives must cede power to others. In some cases, the merging companies are hamstrung by elected leaders who force them to keep operating money-losing factories.Thomas Stallkamp, an automotive consultant based in Michigan, was involved in the struggles of one of the biggest auto mergers, the 1998 merger of Chrysler and the German company Daimler. Mr. Stallkamp spent years in senior roles at Chrysler and DaimlerChrysler.“Car companies are big, complicated organizations, with large engineering staffs, manufacturing plants all over the world, hundreds of thousands of employees, in a capital-intensive business,” Mr. Stallkamp said. “You try to put two of them together and you run into a lot of egos and infighting, so it’s very, very difficult to make it work.”Honda and Nissan announced plans this year to work together on electric vehicles, and on Monday they formally began talks about extending that cooperation to a merger that could also include Mitsubishi Motors, a smaller manufacturer that works closely with Nissan. A pairing would unite Japan’s second- and third-biggest automakers, after Toyota, and create a company that would be the third largest in the world by number of cars produced, after Toyota and Volkswagen.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    See How Much NYC’s Congestion Pricing Plan Would Cost You

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    Most drivers will begin paying new congestion tolls on Jan. 5 to reach the heart of Manhattan, if all goes as planned. The fees are meant to relieve some of the world’s worst gridlock and pollution while raising billions of dollars for important upgrades to New York City’s subways and buses. Officials also hope to […] More

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    Ford Fined by Safety Agency Over Defective Rearview Camera Recalls

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    The regulator faulted the automaker for not recalling cars with defective rearview cameras quickly enough and for providing incomplete and inaccurate information.Ford Motor will pay a fine of up to $165 million for not recalling cars with defective rearview cameras in a timely manner, the federal government’s main auto safety agency said on Thursday.The agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Ford also had failed to provide accurate and complete information about the defect and recall. If Ford is required to pay the full sum, it will be the second-largest fine ever issued by the regulator. The largest fine, a $200 million penalty in 2015, was levied against Takata, a Japanese company that made defective airbag inflaters that resulted in a huge, global recall.The safety agency said a defective rearview camera could increase the risk of a crash.“Timely and accurate recalls are critical to keeping everyone safe on our roads,” the agency’s deputy administrator, Sophie Shulman, said in a statement. “When manufacturers fail to prioritize the safety of the American public and meet their obligations under federal law, NHTSA will hold them accountable.”Under a consent decree between the agency and Ford, the automaker is required to pay $65 million. A second sum of $55 million will be deferred and can be partly or completely reversed if Ford makes changes to improve its ability to identify defects and alert the safety agency quickly.Ford also agreed to spend $45 million to improve its ability to analyze data, create a new means of sharing information and documents with the safety agency, and set up a base to test rearview camera components.“We appreciate the opportunity to resolve this matter with NHTSA and remain committed to continuously improving safety and compliance at Ford,” the automaker said in a statement. “Wide-ranging enhancements are already underway with more to come, including advanced data analytics, a new in-house testing facility, among other capabilities.”According to a summary of the safety agency’s investigation, the defect was related to a faulty circuit board that caused rearview cameras in certain models to stop working. The agency received 15 complaints about the defect but did not identify any injuries or fatalities caused by it.Ford first identified the defect in 2020 and issued a recall for more than 620,000 vehicles, largely from the 2020 model year, including F-Series pickups, Mustangs and several sport utility vehicles. A year later, the safety agency opened an investigation to determine if Ford had accurately identified and reported all of the vehicles that could have been affected by the camera defect.Ford expanded the recall in 2023 and again this year. Separately, Ford recalled a different set of rearview cameras in 2023 at a cost of $270 million. More