Obviously, it’s important I not ignore the big trade news from the weekend even if that’s what I want to do. This is going to be hard. I want this place to be a respite from a lot of the divisions in the world because car culture can be a way to get away from all of that. We’ll try to keep the rest of the site that way, so just consider this a bit of a trigger warning.
Here we go…
How could the Mavericks trade Luka Doncic to the Lakers?!? If you’re a Dallas fan, this is just another disappointment in a long line of disappointments. If you’re a Lakers fan, you might be happy in the long term, but what does a Lakers team look like this season? Next season? These are all tough questions.
Just kidding! I’m going to talk about all the trade war shenanigans. I’m not going to be alarmist about it and, instead, I’m going to try to embrace the unreality of it all with a bit of a Swiftian analysis. Jonathan, not Taylor, just to be clear. If you want alarmism you can feel free to head over to the Millennial retirement home known as BlueSky, where everyone is screaming like a banshee (though I wouldn’t use that phrase on BlueSky unless you want 12 people you don’t know to accuse you of Irish cultural appropriation).
This will be one of those Morning Dumps that’s mostly focused on one thing but, if you stick around, we’ll have some Stellantis executive changes a new Alpine paint job. Exciting!
The Anti-Cars Trump Presidency?
An electric car entrepreneur is running the government, he’s raising taxes on gasoline and destroying the supply chains used to make traditional gas-powered cars and somehow the left is upset. pic.twitter.com/pfaOQAQvkf
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 2, 2025
President Trump is going through, maybe, on tariffs he previewed last week. The goal, in his words, is to stop Canada and Mexico from allowing the drug Fentanyl and illegal immigrants from crossing the border.
What if President Trump had other plans? I didn’t come up with this idea and, in my heart of hearts, I’m a little loathe to cite my old friend’s old roommate Matthew Yglesias, but here’s the tweet/x/whatever, which I’ll quote below:
An electric car entrepreneur is running the government, he’s raising taxes on gasoline and destroying the supply chains used to make traditional gas-powered cars and somehow the left is upset.
If you can’t see the quote, he’s referencing this story from Axios about how the “U.S. auto industry could be decimated by tariffs” because, as we’ve pointed out, there are a bunch of cars made in Canada and Mexico. Even worse, now that we’ve got an idea of what the tariffs will look like, it seems like goods get charged every time they cross. Some car parts/cars will cross a border up to five times.
Over at The Detroit Press, there’s a big and ongoing list of automakers that could be impacted. It’s basically all of them.
Around 90% of auto exports from both Mexico and Canada go to the U.S., according to the Mexican Automotive Manufacturers’ Association and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.
Detroit is at the epicenter of domestic impact, and the Detroit Regional Chamber and its MichAuto affiliate on Saturday evening the tariffs “will have detrimental effects to our automotive industry in Michigan, the Great Lakes Region and across the continent.”
“Our economies are inextricably linked by manufacturing and many other critical industries,” Glenn Stevens Jr. the executive director of MichAuto said in a statement. “MichAuto and its constituents are concerned about the collateral damage that will be done to manufacturing, the impact it will have on Michiganders’ jobs, and the fact that the consumer will feel the increased cost of doing business in the prices they pay from vehicles in the showrooms to the grocery store.
Do you want to know one car that’ll be super impacted? The Ford Maverick. They’re coming for the Maverick! Sound the alarms!
From Automotive News we’ve got “Tariffs threaten to bring North American auto production to ‘screeching halt’” and this tidbit:
Tariffs aimed at Canada’s auto sector will also “score direct hits” on auto producing states from Michigan to Alabama and Georgia to California, said Flavio Volpe, CEO of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association.
“The dominoes will fall as the quick debates happen on who is going to absorb the 25 per cent.”
The tariff rate is “15-per-cent higher than anybody’s profit margin,” and neither automakers nor suppliers will be prepared to take those losses, resulting in idled plants, Volpe added.
Oh, right, automakers have been squeezing supplier margins for approximately forever and so a 25% tariff is not sustainable for them if it happens, as promised.
Maybe Canada and Mexico will blink? According to the NYT, that ain’t happening yet:
Canada announced on Sunday that it would target everything from American-made honey, tomatoes and whiskey to refrigerators and toilets as Mexico’s president said her country would respond soon to President Trump’s far-reaching tariffs in products from the United States’ neighbors.
If you’re so inclined, you can go find videos of Canadians booing the “Star Spangled Banner” and taking bottles of Tito’s Vodka off the shelves (so far, blue state liquors seem safe).
It’s here I would like to tag our own Canadian correspondent Thomas in this conversation, but he’s curiously absent today. He’s claiming he “has the flu” from a recent trip. Curious timing, Thomas!
It’s possible this will be limited in timing and scope, but former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers doesn’t think so, telling CNN’s Manu Raju:
“This is a self-inflicted wound to the American economy…. I’d expect inflation over the next three or four months to be higher as a consequence, because the price level has to go up when you put a levy on goods that people are buying.”
Welcome to the Resistance… Larry Summers? Lol.
So, it seems bad, but maybe it isn’t going to be bad! In a bit of good timing, I’m reading a book about the history of free trade in the United States right now and it’s probably worth mentioning that few people ever correctly guess what the result of tariffs are going to be. In fact, economists still don’t even necessarily agree on the impact of trade policy from 100 years ago.
I’m going to take the most unlikely case this morning. Not because it’s what I believe is true. I don’t. I just find it amusing. Right now the people over at the r/fuckcars subreddit are treating it as good news and “The War On Cars” account on BlueSky (where else?) had this to reiterate that they’re “not going to welcome Trump to The War On Cars” even though people keep asking.
What if this trade war is a war on cars? If you wanted to make people drive less and buy fewer new cars, this would be a not-terrible way of doing that.
First, you’d make cars really expensive. Unnecessarily so. And you’d do it right at a time when everyone is concerned about vehicle affordability. Then, just for fun, you’d make gas more expensive. Is gas going to get more expensive? Maybe!
From NBC News, we get “Gas prices set to rise as Trump tariffs hit Canadian and Mexican oil” and this:
The likely hike in fuel prices reflects the double-edged nature of Trump’s trade protections which are designed to bolster domestic business and pressure U.S. neighbors to curb illegal immigration and drug smuggling, but which will also run counter to his promises to tackle inflation.
The U.S. imports some 4 million barrels per day of Canadian oil, 70% of which is processed by refiners in the Midwest. It also imports over 450,000 bpd of Mexican oil, mainly for refiners concentrated around the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Tariffs on those imports mean higher costs for making finished fuels like gasoline, much of which is likely to be passed along to U.S. consumers.
I’m not going to get into a whole petroleum lesson here (although, as a Houstonian, about 40% of my history and science education in public schools was designed to prepare me to do so), but the type of oil we’re really good at refining is the kind of thick, gloopy stuff (crude oil) we get from Canada. We need Canada’s crude oil and Canada needs our refining. This is especially true in the Midwest, which can’t easily get crude oil from anywhere else. A deeper explanation here if you’re curious.
If the tariffs go into effect on Tuesday and aren’t quickly reversed, it’s possible that cars and gas will both get more expensive. If they are reversed in short order, then, perhaps, not much of this will happen.
Is this a totally ridiculous argument? Of course it is. President Trump has made it clear he wants to strengthen the domestic car industry and, over a long enough time period, it’s likely that carmakers will relocate more production in the United States.
Also, Tesla will probably suffer from these tariffs, so it’s not like President Trump’s new best friend Elon Musk will escape the impact, nor will this avoid impacting EVs (all GM EVs, for instance, will get hit).
Hey, what’s that Musk feller up to right now?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk And His Band Of Mysterious Young Engineers Are Attempting To Take Over Control Of Government Payments
The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments https://t.co/GabhBL7gxf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025
The ostensible car company CEO Elon Musk and “six young men” are — under the guise of DOGE, which is supposed to improve government efficiency — apparently running around the federal government trying to stop payments to federal contractors.
WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer.
Elon Musk has called these young men his “Spartans” and, yeah, not gonna touch that one. According to Bloomberg, the Lutheran Family Services funds went to a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees.
Looking into the list that was highlighted, this includes Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, which provides foster care to children. There’s also Lutheran Social Services of the South, in Texas, whose mission is to “break the cycle of child abuse by empowering children, families and communities.”
I mention all this because… it’s weird! Some people may find these specific cuts totally normal and there’s a Libertarian sort of logic to it, maybe, but most automotive CEOs are usually loathe to get involved in politics. Like, I’m pretty sure Koji Sato wasn’t out trying to stop dialysis patients in West Virginia from getting rides to the doctor.
The Bloodletting At Stellantis Continues
Carlos Tavares, pictured above, is out at Stellantis and, as was inevitable, a lot of his successors and deputies are getting shuffled out of their roles.
Chief Software Officer Yves Bonnefont is stepping down from his role, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. Linda Jackson, who has been in charge of the Peugeot brand, is also losing her role, the people said.
Considered a Tavares protégé, Bonnefont has been in charge of the software business that was responsible for delays to key new models in the U.S. and Europe, including an all-electric Ram pickup truck, the people said. Chief Engineering and Technology Officer Ned Curic will oversee software in the future as part of operations streamlining, they said.
Sometimes you pick the wrong horse. It happens.
Hey, Look, New Alpine Livery
This TMD was a long, hard squeeze. Apologies. Here’s a nice, short, smooth log of news to help round it out. It’s the new Alpine A424 hypercar livery for 2025. Looks good, Alpine!
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Are you ready to have your socks absolutely charmed right off of your feet?!? I was trying to explain to my daughter what being 16 felt like, and Bjork’s “Oh So Quiet” is about as close as it gets. She didn’t get to see the great Spike Jonze video, though, because we were in the car.
The Big Question About Trade
How long will this last? Will this trade war even make it to COTD?
Top image: White House/Captain Planet
JFC, the Federal government, as well as hundreds of state, county and municipal governments dole out grant payments so the various government orgs can contract for community services. This has gone on for decades and decades…. Food banks, shelters, rehab clinics, after school programs.
Look, you want to defund that stuff, you be (the dickish and evil) you. But don’t act like you’ve uncovered a vast financial fraud conspiracy. It just makes it clear you’re disingenuous or, the far more likely, a giant stupid fucking idiot.
The Canada and Mexico trade war wasn’t as of 6pm monday as these countries “cut deals”. And yea, I like 98% called it because I don’t believe a single word the orange raisin is uttering. Sorry for having to write all these tariff words Matt.
However Musk at the gates of the federal bureaucracy is a whole other movie which I never thought would exist, but only shows how limited my normie imagination is when it comes to fucking over an entire country and possibly beyond that.
All I can think of now is the movie Canadian Bacon which is so hilarious…oh, how I love that movie
“Canadians are always dreaming up a lotta ways to ruin our lives. The metric system, for the love of God! Celsius! Neil Young!”
I don’t think the tariffs are meant to stay. They’ll hurt American corporations more than help, and I expect Trump will carve out profitable loopholes in the tariffs in exchange for corporate concessions (either money or loyalty). But I believe its other purpose (if you’ll forgive me for being paranoid) is to present a fascinating what-if scenario that dominates news and social media feeds so nobody notices some of the horrific shit the administration is up to.
For an example:
Were you aware of even half that? Almost none of that came through my usual news feeds. And we’re not even two weeks in.
Thanks for the Bjork video! Much appreciated!
I do purchasing for a small electronics instrumentation OEM, actions like the tariffs from this administration has the potential to really shrink our profit margin. And of course like good capitalists, we’ll try to pass along the extra costs to our customers, some of which are government affiliated.
The governmental chaos and potential civil rights and liberties violations are too tremendous to contemplate and comment on for a Monday. And I plan on doing that elsewhere anyway.
“Even if Mexico, Canada and these other countries snap their fingers and did away with the drug trade, as long as we have that demand, there will be another country that will satisfy that demand.”
quote from AP news