President Donald Trump stated on Sunday that the 100% tariff on Chinese car imports has successfully kept Chinese automakers out of the US market and thereby protected Detroit manufacturers General Motors and Ford. Last month, five major US auto trade groups — representing GM, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and others — wrote to the White House urging it to maintain all restrictions and block Chinese factory investment. “I put 100% tariff on all Chinese cars coming in, and that’s destroying Europe,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News. “They’re destroying Europe because they’re taking away so much business from Mercedes and BMW,” Trump added before turning to the US market. “And we don’t have any Chinese cars in our country because they would have destroyed General Motors, Ford, they would have destroyed these companies if they did it,” the US President stated. US Tariffs on Chinese EVs During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump was the first major political figure to publicly propose a 100% tariff specifically on Chinese-made cars. As early as March 2024, he told supporters at rallies and in interviews that he would “put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars.” Two months later, on May 14, 2024, the Biden administration became the first to implement this level of protection by announcing the quadrupling of the existing 25% Section 301 tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 100%. Trump’s own first-term administration had applied a 25% tariff on Chinese vehicles and auto parts under Section 301 starting in 2018. Upon returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump maintained Biden’s full 100% tariff without any reduction and later strengthened the overall barrier by issuing a new 25% Section 232 national-security