Industry Pushes Back Against Heavy-Duty Levy
At this stage, it is not known which weight classes will be affected. However, the announcement does follow a Department of Commerce investigation to determine the “effects on the national security of the imports of medium-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks, and medium-and heavy-duty truck parts.”
While the President has explicitly called out the need to eliminate “outside interruptions,” many of the biggest truck manufacturers in the US sell a high volume of products abroad. Thus, the levy could have a damaging impact on the logistics industry, which is already reckoning with the devastating impacts of an ongoing labor shortage.
In May, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) voiced truck tariff dissent, arguing that potential levies could bring a creaking industry to its knees. In a statement at the time, it wrote: “Heavy-duty tractors bought by US carriers only come from two places: the United States and Mexico. There are virtually no other countries that export finished heavy-duty tractors into the US market.”
