日经称美国拟对加拿大产汽车及零部件加征50%关税将压低丰田、本田利润

TOKYO -- Manufacturing operations in Canada by Japanese automakers Toyota Motor and Honda Motor, are under threat after U.S. President Donald Trump announced last week the imposition of a 50% tariff on all cars, trucks and automotive parts produced in the neighboring country from January next year.
While urgent actions are needed to address the issue, which could lead to profit declines, the two automakers are in a difficult situation as making significant changes to their supply chains is challenging due to numerous uncertainties including the adoption of electric vehicles and U.S. midterm congressional elections in November.
Both Toyota and Honda started operating car manufacturing plants in Canada's Ontario province in the 1980s. A number of affiliated auto parts suppliers established operations there as well. Toyota, for instance, produces SUVs such as the RAV4 and its luxury Lexus brand's RX and NX.
According to data by the Pacific Manufacturing Association of Canada, an industry body consisting of Toyota and Honda's local firms, the automakers built more than 75% of all vehicles manufactured in Canada. As the majority of those are believed to be exported to the U.S., multiple reports from industry analysts suggest that around 15% of the vehicles Toyota sells in the U.S. are produced in Canada. For Honda, the figure is more than 20%.
The two automakers are more heavily affected by the tariffs than their rivals with plants in Canada such as Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis.
According to estimates by UBS Securities, if both the U.S. and Canada raise tariffs on imported vehicles to 50% from 2027 onward, Toyota's earnings per share would fall 4% while Honda's would decline 7% for the fiscal year ending March 2028. The impact on Honda is expected to be greater because it has a higher proportion of tariff-exposed sales in its global vehicle shipments as well as a higher share of Canadian-made vehicles in its U.S. sales than Toyota.
These estimates, however, do not factor in tariffs on auto parts. "The impact would be even greater if the entire supply chain were taken into account," said Kohei Takahashi, an analyst at UBS Securities Japan.
Seiji Sugiura, senior analyst at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Laboratory, estimated that applying a 50% tariff to vehicle exports from Canada to the U.S. and losing that business would reduce operating profit by 10% at Toyota and by 30% at Honda, based on results for the fiscal year ended March this year. In Honda's case, he made its calculation for operating profit excluding EV-related losses.
Sugiura said Trump's latest announcement poses "a risk to the business, earnings outlook and share prices of Toyota and Honda."
However, "the stock market appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach, as the prevailing view at present is that this is part of his [Trump's] negotiating tactics, based on past experience," he added. There have been no significant changes in the share prices of either company over the past two weeks.
Major automakers have established manufacturing operations in Canada on the premises that vehicles would qualify for tariff-free treatment under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). It is what makes their business model -- manufacturing vehicles in Canada and Mexico and exporting them to the massive U.S. market -- work.
"As a countermeasure, automakers will likely have little choice but to consider options such as expanding production capacity in the U.S. and diversifying export destinations for vehicles produced in Canada," Sugiura said.
Takahashi of UBS Securities said, "It would be extremely difficult to decide to raise prices simply because costs have increased," citing affordability issues in the U.S. market as well as intensifying competition in midsize SUVs, a core segment for Japanese automakers, where increasing incentives have been driving prices lower.
"Toyota has vehicles for which demand exceeds supply, such as minivans in Japan and the Land Cruiser in emerging markets, making it easier to raise prices in other [non-U.S.] regions," he said. "Honda, by contrast, generates roughly half of its sales in North America. If costs rise in the U.S., it would need to consider passing them on there, as it would be difficult to absorb those costs elsewhere."
Trump has said the tariffs will take effect in January next year, but U.S. midterm congressional elections are scheduled for November and the next presidential election will follow in 2028. "There are simply too many variable factors to make major decisions such as where to build production facilities," Takahashi said.
Sanshiro Fukao, executive fellow at Itochu Research Institute, said, "A management decision to increase the share of production in the U.S. in anticipation of the tariffs is a matter of production capacity five or even 10 years from now, and not something that can be done immediately."
Fukao said that the upcoming tariffs should instead be viewed as a good opportunity to reconsider a production system in North America in anticipation of the full-scale shift to electric vehicles in the future, even though the pace of EV adoption is currently slowing down in the U.S.
"While the U.S. market is, of course, large, the shift toward EVs is advancing rapidly in Canada and Mexico," he said.
And while there is political resistance to EVs in the U.S., Fukao added that the transition will continue there as well in line with global trends.
"Regardless of President Trump, companies need to focus on broader market trends and think about building supply chains on the assumption that the shift toward EVs will continue," he said.
Additional reporting by Yuichi Shiga.