A Mercedez-Benz dealership in downtown Shanghai in August 2014. Daimler is one of the biggest global companies to cut its profit outlook and blame smoldering trade tensions. Photo credit: REUTERS
FRANKFURT — Daimler warned profit would fall in 2018 as new import tariffs on light vehicles exported from the United States to China would hurt sales of high-margin Mercedes-Benz SUVs.
Daimler earnings before interest and taxes would now be slightly below the previous year’s level, rather than slightly above, the company said in a regulatory filing late Wednesday.
Daimler’s revised forecast comes as U.S. President Donald Trump is proposing to impose tariffs on imported vehicles on grounds that trade imbalances on many products threaten U.S. national security. He is separately promising to impose tariffs on up to $200 billion of Chinese goods. China has warned it would retaliate with levies on U.S. products, potentially including the Mercedes-Benz SUVs shipped to China from Alabama.
Separately on Wednesday, the CEO of Volvo Cars warned that higher tariffs could undermine the Chinese-owned automaker’s plans to hire up to 4,000 workers at a new vehicle assembly plant in South Carolina.
Stocks in a wide range of companies have see-sawed in recent weeks as investors tried to assess the risk to corporate profits from the Trump administration’s trade policy.
Daimler is one of the biggest global companies to cut its profit outlook and blame trade tensions. The German industrial firm’s revised forecast came on the same day as reports that German automakers backed a proposal that the European Union drop tariffs on vehicles to defuse trade tensions.
While the U.S. and China have not yet imposed new tariffs, Daimler said it expects that to occur, and that the automaker will not be able to recover the costs from customers.
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