Thirty-five point four billion dollars. That is what global automakers have paid in tariff costs since President Trump reimposed and expanded import duties in 2025, according to an Automotive News analysis of company filings. Toyota alone expects a $9.1 billion tariff bill for its fiscal year ending this month. The Detroit Big Three — General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis — collectively absorbed $6.5 billion last year. BMW, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, and half a dozen other manufacturers each reported bills north of $1 billion.

The tariffs were supposed to revive American manufacturing. The ledger tells a different story.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

During Trump’s first full 12 months back in the White House, U.S. factories shed 98,000 jobs, according to federal employment data. The trade imbalance in manufactured goods — the very metric tariffs are designed to fix — has widened. China’s global trade surplus climbed to a record $1.2 trillion.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers reported in February that America’s share of global manufacturing severely lags China’s and called for tariff relief on raw materials, parts, and components that simply cannot be sourced domestically at scale. The group has urged tax credits to offset tariff costs — an unusual ask from an industry that was told tariffs would be their salvation.

“You don’t get the sense that there is this new manufacturing renaissance underway,” said Skanda Amarnath of the research group Employ America.

From the Factory Floor

The damage is sharpest at the companies tariffs were explicitly meant to protect.

Jay Allen runs Allen Engineering Corp. in Paragould, Arkansas, building industrial concrete equipment — power trowels that sell for up to $100,000 each. He voted for Trump. He expected tax cuts and deregulation. What he got was a 50% tariff on the steel he buys and steep duties on the German-made diesel engines his machines require.

Allen ran his company at a loss in 2025. His payroll has dropped from 205 workers to 140. He has raised prices 8 to 10%, which he fears will further suppress demand. Moving engine production stateside would require a $20 million capital investment — a bet no small manufacturer will make when tariff policy shifts by the month.

“What’s really sad is the unintended consequences of his tariffs are hurting manufacturing in our country,” Allen told the Associated Press.

In South Carolina, Glen Calder of Calder Brothers, which makes asphalt paving equipment, watched steel prices jump 25% in the two weeks before tariffs took effect. They have not come back down.

These are not multinational conglomerates with the balance sheets to absorb shocks. Ninety-eight percent of U.S. manufacturing establishments employ fewer than 200 people.

The Legal Reckoning

American companies have not gone quietly. Firms have filed more than $130 billion in tariff refund lawsuits against the administration.

They got a boost on February 20, when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize tariffs — stripping away the legal basis for the broadest import taxes. The administration moved the same day, invoking Section 122 to impose a 10% temporary import surcharge for 150 days.

The policy whiplash — more than 50 tariff actions in a year, not counting social media threats — has left manufacturers unable to plan. The engines Allen imports, the steel Calder buys, the supply chains automakers have spent decades building: none of these can be restructured on a timeline that matches a news cycle.

The Bottom Line

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Pierre Yared has argued that “it takes time to get production online.” Perhaps. But the Tax Foundation estimates tariffs have already cost the average American household an additional $1,000 to $1,600 per year.

The protectionist promise was simple: tax imports, and factories will come home. A year in, the factories are cutting staff, the imports are more expensive, and the trade deficit is wider. The $35.4 billion bill keeps climbing. Someone is paying it. It is not China.

Sources