US tariffs on imported cars could lead BMW to reduce investment and cut jobs in the United States due to the large number of cars it exports from its South Carolina plant, the German carmaker has warned. President Trump's administration last month launched an investigation into whether auto imports posed a national security threat and Trump has threatened to impose a 20 percent tariff on all imports of EU-assembled cars.
"The domestic manufacture of automobiles has no apparent correlation with US national security," BMW wrote in a letter to US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross this week, adding that imposing duties would not increase US growth and competitiveness.
The BMW plant in South Carolina is its largest globally and ships more than 70 percent of its annual production to other export markets, the company said. Chinese tariffs on US passenger cars, imposed in retaliation for US duties on Chinese goods, have already hiked up the cost of exporting to China, BMW said. Any US tariffs would likely lead to further retaliatory measures from China and the European Union.
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