UK vehicle production hits 76-year low in May as Trump tariffs bite

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Vehicle production in the United Kingdom collapsed in May to the lowest level since 1949 after it was forced by US president Donald Trump’s war of Aston Martin and other British car employees to stop their shipments to the United States.

The production of cars and cars in British plants decreased by 33 percent in May by a year to 49,810 units, and numbers from the Association of Automobile Manufacturers and merchants that were issued on Friday showed.

Production decreased for the fifth consecutive month, which represents the worst monthly performance in 76 years, with the exception of the closing of vehicle factories during Covid-19s in 2020.

Luxury British brands, including Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin, have stopped vehicle shipments to the United States from April after the Trump administration slapped a higher tariff on the external vehicles imported to the United States.

Car shipments to the United States fell by 55 percent year on a year in May, reducing the US share of exports from 18 percent to 11 percent. Exports to the European Union also decreased by 22.5 percent.

These US shipments are expected to resume the scheduled implementation of the Commercial deal of the United States of America on Monday, by which Trump agreed to reduce an American tariff by 27.5 percent on cars to 10 percent for the first 100,000 vehicles shipped from the United Kingdom every year.

“While 2025 it proved that it is an incredibly difficult year for cars in the United Kingdom, there is the beginning of some optimism for the future,” said Mike Hazi, CEO of SMMT, referring to the Trade Agreement and the recent disclosure of the industrial strategy in the United Kingdom, which is at energy costs of up to 25 percent.

The agreement was announced with the United States by Trump on May 8, but the CEOs of cars expressed their frustration with the speed of its implementation. A few days before the deal is valid, companies have not yet been informed of the allocation of the specified shares system.

Adrian Halmark, CEO of Aston Martin, said at the SMMT event on Tuesday. “This is the complexity and dynamism.”

Halmark still welcomes the deal, saying that British car makers were now “less worse than some European and non -European competitors.”

Even before the outbreak of the American trade war, vehicle production in the UK was declining with the struggle of industry to achieve the targets of sales of difficult electric vehicle in the country.

Stelantis said last year that the cost of compliance with the “mandate of the emissions vehicle” to the government was partially behind its decision to close the Luton Van factory and unify its operations in the United Kingdom at the Ellesmer Port Factory in Cheshire.

Ford also blamed the mandate as it reduced 800 UK roles last year in a wider European restructuring.