Our weekly roundup begins today with President Donald J. Trump’s new 50% tariff on steel and aluminum derivatives announced Monday. This new tax impacts more than 400 product categories across all import sectors, about 50 of which include automotive or heavy-duty products. This new tariff has no USMCA exemptions so the additional duties will be felt in trucking's supply chain. Next we address the Department of Justice’s decision to sue CARB over the Clean Truck Partnership, MacKay & Company’s most recent aftermarket update and prepping for next week’s Brake Safety Week inspection blitz.
Lucas: Hi everybody. Lucas here with the TPS Weekly News Roundup.
I’m going start today with Monday’s newest announcement on tariffs on steel and aluminum derivatives. This is an expansion of the steel and aluminum tariffs from earlier in the summer, but unlike those earlier tariffs, there’s no USMCA exemptions in this document. Meaning this is the tariff that’s going to hit your products and going to hit your pricing. There’s more than 407 distinct product categories in the announcement. About 50 of those impact the heavy-duty or automotive sector. How much that impacts pricing right now remains to be seen. The tariff is 50%, but how much of that is absorbed by manufacturers remains to be seen. But keep an eye out. As long as that tariff remains in place, that’s going to start impacting pricing probably next week if it hasn’t already.
Also, this week the Department of Justice announced it is suing CARB and siding with the Class 8 truck OEMs regarding the Clean Truck Partnership. The Department of Justice echoing the Class 8 truck manufacturers’ argument from last week that the partnership should no longer be valid because the EPA waivers granted to California for its heavy-duty regulations were revoked in June. We’ll be keeping up on that story moving forward and there’s a story on the website this week about the Department of Justice lawsuit.
Also this week on Tuesday, MacKay & Company joined MEMA for their monthly Pulse webinar. They gave an update on the aftermarket, on the greater trucking in industry and the greater trucking economy. The MacKay team saying the aftermarket is up a little bit this year — mostly due to price. The trucking industry, as we know, is not doing very well and is likely to continue kind of stumbling along until we have some trade certainty.
And then the last thing I want to touch on, next week is Brake Safety Week. So, for the parts and service people out there, now’s your chance to gear up, get ready, get those sales flyers out this weekend. Make sure your customers know that’s coming.
A lot of other good news on the website this week. Check it out. We’ll have a lot more great stuff next week. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend. See you, everybody.
