As the trade war rages on, a new warning bell has chimed in the automotive industry. New vehicle imports from overseas are down 72.3 percent year-over-year in May, according to trade data firm Descartes Datamyne, a decrease from 12,979.76 in May of 2024 to 3,599.33 in May of 2025. That’s a huge decrease that could have serious effects on the car market in America, and if this unusual period in international relations continues, we might be looking at the next big car shortage.
It’s worth noting that maritime car imports are measured in 20-foot equivalent units, standard shipping units measuring 19 feet 10.5 inches long and eight feet wide. Since very few cars meet those dimensions, it wouldn’t be surprising if actual volume decreases worked out to more than 9,380 fewer cars last month, and that’s not accounting for cars that flowed across the Canadian and Mexican borders. There’s one obvious reason for the decline, as Automotive News reports:
“It’s almost impossible to reach any other conclusion than this is the impact of vehicle tariffs manifesting itself in import volumes,” said Jackson Wood, director of industry strategy for global trade intelligence at Descartes Systems Group. “My read on this is that importers are pausing, hoping that more favorable tariff conditions will emerge in the medium term.”
Indeed, it’s possible that deals will be brokered between the United States and other car-producing countries, such as the deal made with the United Kingdom. However, there’s no guarantee of that happening soon, and even if trade agreements are inked, it might happen too late to avoid feeling the effects.
On the one hand, a lot of high-end cars are shipped in from overseas, like the Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and Range Rover. On the other hand, some of the most affordable cars in America are imported from overseas, such as the Chevrolet Trax, Buick Envista, Hyundai Venue, and Kia Seltos. While the luxury car market often features low price sensitivity—the base price of a new 911 has been going up year after year, yet people won’t stop buying—and should be at least somewhat insulated from a drop in imports, the affordable car market is extremely price-sensitive, and therefore highly exposed to tariffs.
At the same time, new car sales volume in America has been absolutely cranking that Soulja Boy over the past few months. Hyundai had its best March and April ever, and May sales are up eight percent year-over-year. Sales of the imported Chevrolet Trax were up 57 percent year-over-year in Q1, Porsche had a record-breaking May, Kia just announced eight consecutive months of year-over-year sales growth, the list goes on. If automakers aren’t importing nearly as many cars from overseas, but are continuing to shift huge volume, where are all these cars coming from? While models produced in North America certainly lighten the load, this discrepancy in sales volume versus import volume means that automakers are selling what’s already on the ground.
Indeed, the industry analysts at Cox Automotive reported that on-the-ground average new vehicle supply stood at 66 days once April ended, down six days from the start of April and 16 days compared to last year. Unsurprisingly, some of the shortest supplies were held by brands relying heavily on imports. Toyota started May with just 29 days of inventory, Kia with 59 days, and Chevrolet with 60 days. If supply of imported cars continues to run down, what happens when people can’t find new cars within budget anymore? That’s right, they buy used ones.
If this gives you flashbacks to 2020, there’s a good reason for that. The shutdown-and-surge cycle of manufacturing five years ago resulted in serious new car shortages, sending more buyers to used lots and driving the prices of used cars sky-high. From January 2020 to January 2022, the Manheim index of used car wholesale values climbed 66.9 percent. While the used car market has retracted from its peak, it remains elevated, partially due to a steep fall-off in lease returns.
It’s no secret that leasing often wasn’t as attractive a proposition in 2020, 2021, and 2022 as it was before, but the market depended on a steady flow of three-, four- and five-year-old gently used cars to bring fresh metal into the second-hand market. With lease buy-outs during that period combining with reduced consumer demand for leasing over the three years mentioned, we’re now seeing elevated late-model used car prices due to relatively low supply. If that trend intensifies over the next few months, expect the divide to grow, with knock-on effects lasting years.
Now, if we end up in a crunch of new car imports, overall market shortages probably won’t be as severe as we saw a few years ago. However, it could disproportionately affect affordable new cars, have noticeable consequences on the used market, and make it harder to afford a vehicle overall. If you like what you drive right now and it’s in good shape, stay up on maintenance and resist the urge to panic-buy. If you desperately need a new car soon because your current one’s on death’s door, it’s probably a good idea to get moving on that sooner rather than later.
Top graphic design by The Autopian; container image via depositphotos.com
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I understand wanting manufacturing jobs, but there are a lot of US jobs that rely on imported automobiles.
Even if we don’t build the vehicle, it is sold and serviced at American-owned dealerships staffed by domestic employees. I realize that auto factories are large operations with many employees, but what is the number of jobs downline from the factories involved in sales / parts / service?
When I first read 3,599.33 in May of 2025, I immediately thought the 0.33 of a car must be a Kei car
Well I’m know auto manufacturer or journalism expert, but my casual knowledge gained mostly by reading the Autopian, which I love dearly and read every day, even Saturday and Sunday makes me wonder. Why is importing number the only metric discussed? Shouldn’t average vehicle days on the market be considered? We got a years worth of ugly Cyber Trucks available do we need more? If we have months of inventory of cars is import volume even a relevant metric No. But we are being told lower import volume is a sign of our economy being destroyed when it is irrelevant if the rest of the economic metrics are being ignored. So don’t worry be happy it’s just click bait.
So if the Autopian has been telling me the truth we have more cars than drivers on the road. We have people driving Pick-ups they do not need. So are we going to experience a big car shortage or a right sizing in the market. People are keeping their cars longer why do we need more cars? A business economics question without a business economics source.
I must be reading this wrong. In a typical year, the US only imports around 150,000 cars from overseas? Surely there are more cars imported each year than Broncos that roll out of the factory. 14,400 Broncos in May vs. 13,000 ‘Vehicle Units’ of imports just doesn’t seem right.
Even using ‘shipping units’, you can fit 124 Lexus RX350s into 100 units, so, it’s not like you’re getting 10 cars into each one. Unless, they’re 10 cars high? /S
The numbers don’t really add up for me either.
Hyundai/Kia made the Venue/Soul in South Korea and sold a combined 75k of them last year. Surely they don’t make up half of the vehicles imported (by boat) into the country.
I think The Autopian Mercedes (not Mercedes Benz) is working to raise the import statistics one car at a time.
Let’s gooooooo! How many more do I need to import to bring the numbers up? 🙂
This is why it is pointless to count imports. It should be vehicles actually insured and registered!
I’m sure this’ll also wreck havoc on the Canadian used car market despite desperately not wanting to be part of the mess – as those vehicles will get shipped to the highest bidder regardless of the border.
That’s going to cost you. Plus making sure all the writing in the car is not only in mile and kilometers but English and French.
We are going to experience such an economic slow-down from all this. We might have been better off if we had just invaded another country to look tough instead of this route to glorification. This desperate need to get wins through any means is beyond sick. All because one man is so pathetically desperate to establish some type of actual legacy. Maybe if we just started telling him that he already saved the country, was the richest, and the most attractive human being extant, he might ease up, but I doubt it. You can’t fill a bottomless pit.
Trump decided to save the travel costs and just do what all fascists do: send the military against his own people.
It so truly fucking insane that he believes that will bolster his legacy. It will make him a permanent historical pariah.
Not if they get to rewrite all the history books. Which is, of course, what they are in the process of doing. The masked goons will soon head for universities to disappear anyone who disagrees with them.
They may try, but like Armenia and Tiananmen Square, you can’t completely erase some atrocities no matter how you try.
We can whitewash a lot of these things if committed by “friendly*” regimes. See: Gwangju Incident, 228 Incident in Taiwan, Suharto’s mass murders, etc.
*with friends like these, who needs enemies?
They are doing it now and riding the wave of push back further into fascism.
Sadly, such action may improve his approval ratings.
And yet the most recent economic data is showing the best since the 90s. Try truth
?
Let’s see how good the economic data is months down the road when the true effects of the tariffs are known. Provided it’s actually truthful.
Trump loves to put his name on things, so we should start naming things like this after him. The Trump Auto Import Shortage, or something, but I’m sure some of y’all have better ideas than that!
Yes, he’d call it the Biden Auto Import Shortage. Remember, everything good is his doing, and everything bad, Biden’s fault.
I just had someone tell me down at the local Elks that all of this economic stuff is because of the democrats blocking things. Reminded him that republicans are fully in charge right now just got him more angry. True story
Except for little local judges blocking things at a national level
For that guy, who is a former corrections officer, he still thinks January 6 was tourists walking around the capital
The Constitution. What a neat document. Try reading it.
Local? They’re federal judges. That’s why things are being blocked at a national level. Also a lot of those judges blocking him are his own appointees. Can’t blame that on the democrats. But perhaps these judges wouldn’t be blocking his actions if they were, y’know…legal. As surprising as it may seem, the president and their administration are supposed to follow the law.
Wow, are we great again yet? I love this new freedom to go without.
This is what winning and freedom looks like