Jaguar Land Rover to ‘pause’ US shipments in wake of tariffs

Jaguar Land Rover has said it will “pause” shipments to the US as it works to “address the new trading terms” of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

A 25% levy on all foreign cars imported into America came into force on Thursday, and a wider “baseline” 10% tariff on goods imported from around the world kicked in on Saturday morning.

The move from the UK car firm comes as companies are grappling with the new trade rules, and the fallout on the global stock markets.

In a statement on Saturday, a JLR spokesperson said: “The USA is an important market for JLR’s luxury brands.

“As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans.”

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Hammered

Trading across the world has been hammered in the aftermath of the president’s tariff announcement at the White House on Wednesday.

The FTSE 100 plummeted on Friday in its worst day of trading since the start of the pandemic, while markets on Wall Street also tumbled.

All but one stock on the FTSE 100 fell on Friday – with Rolls-Royce, banks and miners among those to suffer the sharpest losses.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to spend the weekend taking calls from foreign leaders about the tariffs after discussions with the prime ministers of Australia and Italy on Friday in which the leaders agreed that a trade war would be “extremely damaging”.

Issuing a read-out of their separate conversations on Friday, Number 10 said the leaders “all agreed that an all-out trade war would be extremely damaging”.

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'National interest'

A spokesperson said the PM “has been clear the UK’s response will be guided by the national interest” and officials will “calmly continue with our preparatory work, rather than rush to retaliate”.

“He discussed this approach with both leaders, acknowledging that while the global economic landscape has shifted this week, it has been clear for a long time that like-minded countries must maintain strong relationships and dialogue to ensure our mutual security and maintain economic stability,” the spokesperson added.

London’s top stock market index shed 419.75 points, or 4.95%, to close at 8,054.98 on Friday, the biggest single-day decline since March 2020 when the index lost more than 600 points in one day. The Dow Jones fell 5.5% on Friday as China matched Mr Trump’s tariff rate.

Beijing said it would respond with its own 34% tariff on imports of all US products from April 10.