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Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis became the latest car manufacturers on Wednesday to obtain their advice due to commercial uncertainty, despite American president Donald Trump a day earlier, offering a certain relief to mitigate the costs of his pricing policy.
In a speech in Michigan on Tuesday, Trump offered small discounts to car manufacturers who make their vehicles in the United States to compensate for the costs of its wider samples, as well as exemption from administration prices on steel and aluminum for imported parts.
Frequent changes in tariff policies have struggled to keep up, while profits fell sharply in the first quarter even before the full force of 25% samples on imports of all foreign manufacturing cars.
Ola Källenius, Managing Director of Mercedes-Benz, said on Wednesday that “you can calculate the raw effect of what prices mathematically mean”, but their impact on customers, suppliers and rivals would take place in “asymmetrical”.
Its financial director Harald Wilhelm added that if the rates remained in place for the full year, they would reduce the company's profit margin in its three percentage car division.
The biggest stroke of the margins would come from prices on automotive parts imported in the United States of Mexico, while imports of European models to the United States and the United States to China would also contribute to the impact.
Mercedes, who bets that the latest model of his compact luxury cars launched this year would revive the enthusiasm of consumers, said the benefits of the first quarter before interest and taxes collapsed from 41% to 2.3 billion euros.
It was lower than the average estimate of analysts for a profit of 2.6 billion euros, according to S&P Capital IQ. Mercedes' shares fell by almost 2% on Wednesday morning.
The German Rival Volkswagen said that the profits before the taxes had dropped 40% to 3.1 billion euros in the first quarter. He maintained his annual prospects, but warned that his margin of exploitation of the group would fall at the lower end of his range at 5.5% due to the increase in commercial restrictions.
Meanwhile, Stelllantis, owner of the Brands of Peugeot, Fiat and Jeep, said that his quarterly income had dropped by 14% to 35.8 billion euros as shipments were due to the drop in vehicle production in the United States.
Tuesday, General Motors and Volvo Cars also withdrew their advice while Porsche warned that his profits this year would drop to a “historically low level” due to the fallout from the trade war.
