Welcome to the News Hour. Foreign leaders in Europe, Canada, and Asia tonight sharply criticized President Trump's announcement of 25% tariffs on imported cars and car parts, with some suggesting they may strike back with new tariffs of their own.

Nearly half of all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. last year were assembled outside the country.

Experts said the tariffs could upend the global automotive industry and raise prices for consumers.

The administration said the move, scheduled to take effect next week, would spur domestic manufacturing

and lead to over $100 billion in new annual revenue.

French President Emmanuel Macron called it both a betrayal and bad economic policy.

Imposing tariffs means breaking value chains.

It means creating in the short term an inflationary effect and destroying jobs.

So it is not good for the American or the European economy. In the jobs. So it is not good for the American

or the European economy. In the same way, it is not good for the Canadian or Mexican economy.

I find there to be a sort of paradox in seeing the main allies of the United States to be the

first ones taxed. For more now, we're joined by Gavin Bade. He's trade and economic policy

reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

Gavin, welcome. Thanks for being here. Pleasure is mine. Thank you. So these tariffs were a campaign promise for President Trump. Last month, he seemed to give automakers a bit of a reprieve. Now that they've been officially announced, and as he says, now that they're permanent, what kind of reaction are you hearing from people in the industry? Today, I think, was a lot of surprise, confusion, and trepidation.

You know, very few people, even though it's very close to the White House, expected that these tariffs

would be unveiled yesterday.

We thought that maybe they would come after the April 2nd tariff deadline when we're going to see a lot more duties.

But they did roll them out yesterday, and it's really hard

to overstate what a momentous moment this is for the U.S. automaking sector and the global automakers,

probably the biggest disruption since COVID, and perhaps since the North American Free Trade Deal was

signed in the early 90s. So hard to overstate the impact here. Well, it was welcome news we saw

to the United Auto Workers Union.

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