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Stellantis NV said on Thursday it was temporarily laying off 900 workers at five U.S. facilities and pausing production at one assembly plant each in Mexico and Canada, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs were announced. Trump broadened the tariffs to a 10% baseline on all imports on Wednesday, with higher rates for some countries. These levies followed 25% duties on all auto imports announced last week, which sent shock waves through the global auto industry. In a letter sent to employees on Thursday morning, Antonio Filosa, Stellantis’s chief operating officer for the Americas, said the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects of these tariffs on our operations, but also have decided to take some immediate actions.” These included temporarily pausing production at some Canadian and Mexican assembly plants, affecting jobs at several of Stellantis’ U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities, he said. Shares of Stellantis, which locally makes only half of its U.S.-sold vehicles including Ram trucks and Jeeps, closed 9.3% lower in New York on Thursday. Shares of Ford, General Motors, and Tesla also fell sharply. Nearly half the cars sold last year in the U.S.the world’s largest importer of carswere brought in from abroad, according to research firm GlobalData. Stellantis said its Windsor Assembly, where the Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager minivans and Dodge Charger Daytona are made, will be down for two weeks while Toluca Assembly in Mexico, where the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S are made, will be down for the month of April. About 4,500 workers at Windsor will be impacted by the idling. Workers at Toluca will continue to report to work and get paid but will not make vehicles, according to the company. “A horrifying consequence of Trump’s tariffs,” Democratic U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer said on X, referring to the job cuts. “American workers are paying the price.” Romaine McKinney III, president of the local union chapter that represents workers at Stellantiss stamping plant in Warren, Michigan, said the tariff-related layoffs were troubling his members, especially as they saw GM adding jobs in the U.S. Its pure devastation, McKinney said, adding that morale is already low from a year of layoffs and buyouts that resulted from former CEO Carlos Tavaress costcutting strategy. The five facilities affected by the layoff include Stellantis’s Warren Stamping and Sterling Stamping plants as well as the Indiana Transmission Plant, Kokomo Transmission Plant, and Kokomo Casting Plant, the company said. While McKinney understands it will take time for Stellantis to shift its output, he does not believe the automakerwhich supplies Canadian plants as well as U.S. oneshas to lay off U.S. workers in the meantime. Its completely unnecessary. Its a choice the company is making. The White House declined immediate comment on the Stellantis job cuts. Trump and his administration have said there would be short-term pain for Americans but have promised long-term economic gains with Trump’s plan. The White House said on Thursday that tariffs would ultimately boost U.S. industries and workers. “They can expect their wages to go up . . . There’s not going to be any pain for American-owned companies and American workers because their jobs are going to come back home,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told cable news network NewsNation on Thursday, referring to any impact from Trump’s tariff plan. NORTH AMERICAN INTERCONNECTIVITY While goods from Mexico and Canada that comply with a trade agreement between the three countries will largely remain exempt from tariffs under Trump’s order, auto exports and steel and aluminum fall under separate tariff policies. Automakers are scrambling to figure out how to respond and how much to raise prices, as customers rush to buy cars sitting in lots. The base U.S. tariff rate for automotive imports is 2.5%. Automakers importing vehicles from Canada or Mexico can deduct the value of U.S. parts from the 25% levy. In February, Stellantis said it was pausing work on its next-generation Jeep Compass compact SUV including the retooling of Brampton Assembly in Canada, which is designated to build the vehicle. Lana Payne, president of Unifor, the Canadian union representing Stellantis workers there, said in a Thursday statement: “Unifor warned that U.S. tariffs would hurt auto workers almost immediately and in this case the layoffs were announced before the auto tariff even came into effect. Trump is about to learn how interconnected the North American production system is the hard way, with auto workers paying the price for that lesson. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said in a statement that Stellantis has “got the money, the capacity, the product, and the workforce to employ thousands more UAW members in Michigan, Indiana, and beyond. These layoffs are a completely unnecessary choice that the company is making.” Kalea Hall, David Shepardson and Nora Eckert, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
Your favorite iPhone could soon become much pricier, thanks to tariffs. U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a series of sweeping tariffs on countries around the world that could drastically alter the landscape of global trade, and consumer goods like iPhones could be among the hardest hit, analysts said on Thursday, with increases of 30% to 40% if the company were to pass on the cost to consumers. Most iPhones are still made in China, which was hit with a 54% tariff. If those levies persist, Apple has a tough choice: absorb the extra expense or pass it on to customers. Shares of the company closed down 9.3% on Thursday, hitting their worst day since March 2020. Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year; its biggest markets include the United States, China and Europe. The cheapest iPhone 16 model was launched in the U.S. with a sticker price of $799, but could cost as much as $1,142, per calculations based on projections from analysts at Rosenblatt Securities, who say the cost could rise by 43% – if Apple is able to pass that on to consumers. A more expensive iPhone 16 Pro Max, with a 6.9-inch display and 1 terabyte of storage, which currently retails at $1599, could cost nearly $2300 if a 43% increase were to pass to consumers. Trump imposed tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports in his first term as president to pressure U.S. companies to bring manufacturing either back to the United States or to nearby countries such as Mexico, but Apple secured exemptions or waivers for several products. This time, he has not yet granted any exemptions. “This whole China tariff thing is playing out right now completely contrary to our expectation that American icon Apple would be kid-gloved, like last time,” Barton Crockett, analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, said in a note. The iPhone 16e, launched in February as a cheaper entry point for Apple’s suite of artificial-intelligence features, costs $599. A 43% price hike could push that cost to $856. Prices of other Apple devices could jump as well. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Many customers pay for their phones over a period of two or three years through contracts with their cellular providers. However, other analysts noted that iPhone sales have been floundering in the company’s major markets, as Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that helps summarize notifications, rewrite emails and give users access to ChatGPT, has failed to enthuse buyers. Expert reviews have suggested that the features, while innovative, do not provide enough of a compelling reason to justify upgrading to newer models. The stagnation in demand could put additional pressure on Apple’s bottom line, especially if costs rise due to tariffs. Angelo Zino, equity analyst at CFRA Research, said the company will have a tough time passing on more than 5% to 10% of the cost to consumers. “We expect Apple to hold off on any major increases on phones until this fall when its iPhone 17 is set to launch, as it is typically how it handles planned price hikes.” Even with some production moving to Vietnam and India, most iPhones are still made in China, and those countries were not spared from tariffs either, with Vietnam getting a 46% levy and India’s coming in at 26%. Apple would need to raise its prices by at least 30% on average to offset import duties, according to Counterpoint Research co-founder Neil Shah. A potentially sharp price hike could dampen demand for the smartphone and give South Korea’s Samsung Electronics an edge, as the Asian country faces lower tariffs than China, where all iPhones sold in the U.S. are made. “Our quick math on Trump’s tariff Liberation Day suggests this could blow up Apple, potentially costing the company up to $40 billion,” Rosenblatt Securities’ Crockett noted, adding that negotiations between Apple, China and the White House are likely. “It’s hard for us to imagine Trump blowing up an American iconbut this looks pretty tough.” Akash Sriram, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Parts of the Midwest and South faced the possibility of torrential rains and life-threatening flash floods Friday, while many communities were still reeling from tornadoes that destroyed whole neighborhoods and killed at least seven people.Forecasters warned of catastrophic weather on the way, with round after round of heavy rains expected in the central U.S. through Saturday. Satellite imagery showed thunderstorms lined up like freight trains to take the same tracks over communities in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, according to the national Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.The bull’s-eye centered on a swath along the Mississippi River and included the more than 1.3 million people around Memphis.More than 90 million people were at risk of severe weather from Texas to Minnesota to Maine, according to the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center.Those killed in the initial wave of storms that spawned powerful tornadoes on Wednesday and early Thursday were in Tennessee, Missouri, and Indiana. They included a Tennessee man and his teen daughter whose home was destroyed, and a man whose pickup struck downed power lines in Indiana. In Missouri, Garry Moore, who was chief of the Whitewater Fire Protection District, died while likely trying to help a stranded motorist, according to Highway Patrol spokesperson Sgt. Clark Parrott.Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said entire neighborhoods in the hard-hit town of Selmer were “completely wiped out” and said it was too early to know whether there were more deaths as searches continued. He warned people across the state to stay vigilant with more severe weather predicted.“Don’t let your guard down,” he said during a Thursday evening news conference. “Don’t stop watching the weather. Don’t stop preparing yourself. Have a plan.”With flattened homes behind him, Dakota Woods described seeing the twister come through Selmer.“I was walking down the street,” Woods said Thursday. “Next thing you know, I look up, the sky is getting black and blacker, and it’s lighting up green lights, and it’s making a formation of a twister or tornado.” Flash flood threat looms over many states By late Thursday, extremely heavy rain was falling in parts of southeastern Missouri and western Kentucky and causing “very dangerous/life threatening flash flooding” in some spots, according to the National Weather Service.Heavy rains were expected to continue there and in other parts of the region in the coming days and could produce dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping away cars. The potent storm system will bring “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” each day, the National Weather Service said.Water rescue teams and sandbagging operations were being staged across the region, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was ready to distribute food, water, cots, and generators.Water rescues were already underway in flooded parts of Nashville, where the rain could persist for days after an unnerving period of tornado warnings that drained the batteries of some city sirens, the fire department said.Western Kentucky prepared for record rain and flooding in places that normally do not get inundated, Gov. Andy Beshear said. At least 25 state highways were swamped, mostly in the west, according to a statement from his office Thursday.Flash flooding is particularly worrisome in rural areas of the state where water can quickly rush off the mountains into the hollows. Less than four years ago, dozens died in flooding across eastern Kentucky.Extreme flooding across the corridor that includes Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, which have major cargo hubs, could also lead to shipping and supply chain delays, said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather.Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear, and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf. Tornadoes leave path of damage, and more could be coming Under darkened skies Thursday morning, the remains of a used car dealership in Selmer stood roofless and gutted, with debris scattered across the car lot and wrapped around mangled trees. Some homes were ripped to their foundations in the Tennessee town, where three tornadoes were suspected of touching down.The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video of lightning illuminating the sky as first responders scoured the ruins of a home, looking for anyone trapped.In neighboring Arkansas, a tornado near Blytheville lofted debris at least 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers) high, according to weather service meteorologist Chelly Amin. The state’s emergency management office reported damage in 22 counties from tornadoes, wind, hail, and flash flooding.The home where Danny Qualls spent his childhood but no longer lives was flattened by a tornado in northeast Arkansas.“My husband has been extremely tearful and emotional, but he also knows that we have to do the work,” Rhonda Qualls said. “He was in shock last night, cried himself to sleep.”Workers on bulldozers cleared rubble along the highway that crosses through Lake City, where a tornado with winds of 150 mph (241 kph) sheared roofs off homes, collapsed brick walls, and tossed cars into trees.Mississippi’s governor said at least 60 homes were damaged. And in far western Kentucky, four people were injured while taking shelter in a vehicle under a church carport, according to the emergency management office in Ballard County. Walker IV reported from Selmer, Tennessee, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, Seth Borenstein in Washington; Isabella O’Malley in Philadelphia; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Hallie Golden in Seattle; and Ed White in Detroit contributed. Adrian Sainz, George Walker IV and John Seewer, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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