Toyota warns of $9.5 billion tariff hit

TOKYO, Aug 7: Japan’s Toyota Motor said on Thursday it expected a hit of nearly $10 billion from President Donald Trump’s tariffs on cars imported into the United States, the highest such estimate yet by any company, underscoring growing margin pressures.

The world’s top-selling car maker also cut by 16% its forecast for full-year operating profit, reflecting challenges for global manufacturers grappling with rising costs from U.S. levies on cars, parts, steel and aluminium.

“It’s honestly very difficult for us to predict what will happen regarding the market environment,” Takanori Azuma, Toyota’s head of finance, told a briefing, vowing to keep making cars for U.S. customers, regardless of tariff impact.

Azuma said the 1.4 trillion yen ($9.50 billion) estimate also includes fallout suppliers are facing, particularly those in the U.S. importing parts from Japan, though he declined to say how much of the total was attributable to that.

Rivals have reported smaller tariff hits so far: GM has projected one of $4 billion to $5 billion for the year, while Ford expects a $3-billion gross hit to pretax adjusted profit.

Jeep maker Stellantis said tariffs were expected to add $1.7 billion in expenses for the year.

Toyota cut its operating profit forecast for the financial year to end-March 2026 to 3.2 trillion yen ($21.7 billion), down from a previous outlook of 3.8 trillion yen.

It had previously estimated a tariff hit of 180 billion yen for April and May, but that was solely for the impact from tariffs on Toyota’s vehicles. It had not issued a full-year projection until now.

For the first quarter from April to June, Toyota reported an operating profit of 1.17 trillion yen, down from 1.31 trillion a year earlier, but above the 902 billion average of seven analyst estimates compiled by LSEG.

Toyota’s North American business swung to an operating loss of 63.6 billion yen in the first quarter, from profit of 100.7 billion a year earlier, as it took a hit of 450 billion from the tariffs.