President Donald Trump’s dropping another tariff on the auto industry.
Starting November 1, the U.S. will impose a 25% tariff on all imported medium- and heavy-duty trucks, a dramatic escalation in the administration’s ongoing effort to strengthen domestic manufacturing and reduce reliance on foreign-built vehicles.
The short-term effects could include delays in vehicle availability, higher fleet costs, and potential retaliation from trading partners.
This announcement sent shockwaves through global trade circles and Wall Street. According to Trump, the decision is rooted in national security and economic strength, not politics. But as with any sweeping trade action, there’s more under the hood than meets the eye.
While celebrating the immediate bump in automaker stock prices following the tariff announcement, Trump’s message was direct. “Mary Barra of General Motors and Bill Ford of Ford Motor Company just called to thank me. ... Without tariffs, it would be a hard, long slog for truck and car manufacturers in the United States.”
The president framed the move as a matter of economic sovereignty, arguing that domestic production capacity in critical industries, like heavy vehicles used in logistics, defense, and infrastructure, is essential to national security.
That message resonates with many Americans frustrated by decades of outsourcing and the hollowing out of domestic manufacturing. But it’s also raising concerns among global partners and major U.S. companies with deep supply chain ties abroad.
The new tariffs target a wide range of vehicles: delivery trucks, garbage trucks, utility vehicles, buses, semis, and vocational heavy trucks.
Manufacturers expected to benefit include Paccar, the parent company of Peterbilt and Kenworth, and Daimler Truck North America, which produces Freightliner vehicles in the U.S. These companies have much to gain from reduced import competition and potentially stronger domestic demand.
However, for companies like Stellantis, which manufactures Ram heavy-duty pickups and commercial vans in Mexico, the impact could be costly.
Under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, trucks assembled in North America can move tariff-free if at least 64% of their content originates within the region. But many manufacturers rely on imported parts and materials, putting them at risk of higher costs and tighter margins.
Mexico, the largest exporter of medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the U.S., will be hit hardest. Imports from Mexico have tripled since 2019, climbing from about 110,000 to 340,000 units annually. Canada, Japan, Germany, and Finland also face new barriers under the 25% tariff.
Not everyone is excited about the tariffs — especially considering that the import sources for these trucks (Mexico, Canada, and Japan) are long-standing American allies and trading partners.
Industry analysts warn of supply-chain disruptions, potential price increases, and reduced model availability for both commercial fleets and consumers. Tariffs could also pressure U.S. companies to adjust production strategies, increase domestic sourcing, or even pass higher costs on to customers.
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This is not the first time a Trump administration has leaned on tariffs as an economic lever. During his previous term, tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, and Chinese goods aimed to bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil. Supporters argue those policies helped revitalize key industries and encourage job growth. Critics countered that they raised costs for American companies and consumers alike.
Still, there’s no denying that tariffs remain one of Trump’s most powerful economic tools and one of his most politically effective messages. By positioning tariffs as a way to protect American jobs, the policy appeals to workers and manufacturers across the Rust Belt, a region that will play a pivotal role in the upcoming election.
For the U.S. trucking and logistics sectors, the short-term effects could include delays in vehicle availability, higher fleet costs, and potential retaliation from trading partners.
Truck leasing and rental companies that rely on imported chassis and components may see their operating costs rise. Meanwhile, domestic truck makers could ramp up production, potentially benefiting U.S. suppliers and job growth in states like Ohio, Michigan, and Texas.
The challenge will be whether domestic manufacturers can meet demand quickly enough without triggering inflationary pressures in the commercial transportation market.
Trump’s framing of the tariffs as a “national security matter” echoes earlier policies aimed at reducing foreign dependence in critical sectors, from semiconductors to electric vehicles. Advocates say this approach ensures that America can produce what it needs in times of crisis.
But opponents warn that labeling economic measures as “security” issues can backfire, alienating allies and inviting retaliation. European officials and trade negotiators in Canada and Japan are already signaling possible countermeasures if talks with Washington fail to yield exemptions.
The real question now is how manufacturers will adapt. Companies may accelerate plans to localize assembly and parts production inside the U.S., while foreign brands could seek joint ventures or partnerships with American firms to skirt tariffs.
Consumers and fleets will likely see higher sticker prices for imported trucks and commercial vehicles as tariffs ripple through supply chains. That may also shift more buyers toward U.S.-built models, at least in the short term.
Ultimately, Trump’s move puts America’s industrial policy back in the driver’s seat. Whether it strengthens the economy or creates new trade turbulence will depend on how quickly domestic production can fill the gap left by imports.
President Trump’s 25% truck tariff is a high-stakes bet on American manufacturing dominance. It could fuel a resurgence in U.S. production or ignite new rounds of trade retaliation.
Either way, one thing is certain: The decision has already reshaped the conversation about what it means to build, and buy, American.
The Trump administration has revoked the visas of more than 50 Mexican officials and politicians for alleged connections to various cartels. More officials are likely to lose their visas as the administration looks to both cut off the cartels and increase pressure on the Mexican government to take a harder line against the criminal elements within the country.
'This situation occurs in a complex binational context.'
In a statement to Reuters, a senior U.S. State Department official said that visas held by foreign officials can be revoked "at any time" if the official is engaging in "activities that run contrary to America's national interest."
Mexico is not the first Latin American country to have officials lose their U.S. visas. According to the Guardian, more than 20 judges in Brazil have had their visas revoked, and 14 politicians and businessmen in Costa Rica have lost their visas.
Only a few Mexican officials have publicly stated that their visas have been revoked, as visa records are private under U.S. law. The governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Avila, stated in May that both she and her husband had their visas revoked. In a post on X, she wrote that "this situation occurs in a complex binational context."
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Her husband, Carlos Torres Torres, is a former member of the House of Deputies, the lower house of Mexico's Congress. Both Torres and Avila are members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's Morena party.
These visa crackdowns are part of a wider Trump administration policy of taking a hard line against the criminal elements in South and Central America. In addition to increased diplomatic pressure on Mexico and other Latin American countries, the administration has deployed Navy assets to the Caribbean and conducted lethal strikes on boats being used by cartels to smuggle drugs.
Despite reports that many of the Mexican officials who have lost their visas are members of the ruling Morena party, the U.S. State Department told Reuters that the U.S. has "a good working relationship" with the Mexican government and "look[s] forward to continuing to advance our bilateral relationship in the interest of the America first foreign policy agenda."
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Conservatives have long noticed a disturbing pattern: Hispanic illegal aliens appear again and again in drunk-driving cases. Recent news searches bring up multiple examples, some involving the deaths of children.
This summer’s tragedy in Wisconsin made the problem impossible to ignore — yet the corporate left-wing press tried to do just that. Two high school sweethearts, Hallie Helgeson and Brady Heiling, died when a drunk driver going the wrong way slammed into their car. Just weeks earlier they had gone to prom together.
Americans deserve more than platitudes and silence. They deserve honesty about the cultural, biological, and policy factors behind drunk driving.
The driver was Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila, a Honduran illegal alien who had racked up multiple drunk-driving charges. She lived in a sanctuary jurisdiction that shielded her from deportation. Only under the Trump administration’s renewed immigration enforcement did local authorities finally hand her over to ICE.
The Wisconsin case was heartbreaking, but it was not unique. In 2007, the Raleigh News & Observer published a rare report on the problem. A Mexican man admitted he thought he “drove better after a few beers” and that drunk driving was normal in Mexico. At the time, alcohol-related crashes caused by Hispanic drivers in North Carolina were three times higher than for non-Hispanics.
The national data confirms the trend. Hispanic drunk-driving rates are roughly double those of whites. Alcohol-use disorder is three times as common. More than a third of Hispanic alcohol-dependent users relapse, compared with 23% of whites.
Binge-drinking drives much of the danger. Hispanics are more likely than whites to consume large amounts of alcohol in one sitting. Forty-two percent of Hispanic drinkers admit to three or more drinks per day, compared to 30% of whites.
Mexicans, who make up half of the illegal alien population, show the highest risk. Mexican-Americans are three times more likely than whites to develop alcohol-use disorder. FBI crime data reported last year shows that Hispanics, 19% of the U.S. population, account for 30% of drunk-driving arrests and 44% of public drunkenness arrests.
In California, where Hispanics made up 37% of the population at the time, they represented 44% of DUI charges in 2012 (the latest I could find). In North Carolina, Hispanics were just 8% of the population but accounted for 18% of 75,000 DUI arrests in 2007.
New Mexico illustrates the deadly stakes. With a population that is half Hispanic, the state suffers nearly three times the national alcohol-related death rate. Five people die every day from alcohol. Before reforms in the 2000s, New Mexico’s DUI crash rate stood 70% higher than the national average.
The pattern reflects Mexico itself. In the United States, drunk drivers cause 31% of traffic deaths. In Mexico, the figure is over 70%. About 24,000 Mexicans die annually in alcohol-linked crashes — more than twice the U.S. toll despite the population difference. Until recently, most Mexican states had no legal blood-alcohol limits, and licensing often required little more than paying a fee.
Native populations face even steeper risks. In McKinley County, New Mexico, where the population is 80% Native American, the alcohol-related death rate is three times higher than the state average and ten times the national average.
Research points to genetic factors. Enzymes that mediate alcohol’s effects vary by ethnic group. Indigenous populations, exposed to alcohol only in the last 300 years, show far higher vulnerability. With Mexicans being heavily Mestizo — roughly 20% indigenous and 60% mixed indigenous (Mestizo) — the biological risk compounds the cultural one.
Given decades of national campaigns against drunk driving, one might expect attention to this ethnic dimension. Instead, the media downplay or ignore it. An America First lobbying group once tried to enlist Mothers Against Drunk Driving to raise awareness, but the effort went nowhere.
Academics sometimes excuse the problem by claiming Hispanic immigrants drink out of depression or isolation. Yet the biggest consumers are Puerto Ricans, not Mexicans. Cuban-Americans drink the least. Mexican women report the lowest rates of all, meaning the averages are driven almost entirely by men.
And claims of “racial profiling” ring hollow. Most offenders are caught at night, their identities confirmed by arrest records, not stereotypes.
Democrats dismiss these realities for the same reason they ignore illegal aliens’ broader lawbreaking: victimhood politics. They portray Hispanics as downtrodden and conservatives as cruel.
But the grief of families like the Helgesons and Heilings is not a talking point. It is permanent loss. It is trauma that echoes for generations.
Americans deserve more than platitudes and silence. They deserve honesty about the cultural, biological, and policy factors behind drunk driving. They deserve leaders who will enforce immigration law, reject sanctuary loopholes, and tell the truth about the risks that put their families in danger.
Mexico. Washington, D.C. Minneapolis. Three places, one message: what our enemies believe and how we must respond if we don’t want to become their chattel.
Start with Mexico. President Claudia Sheinbaum openly prefers her own citizens — the so-called salt-of-the-earth workers — to remain north of the Rio Grande rather than return home. Mexico is so badly broken that demanding the right to export its people into a country that increasingly resents the burden has become a viable political position.
The angry young men Trump just won over demand accountability. Without it, no economic boom, no culture war victory, no campaign slogan will hold them.
Now move to Washington, D.C. How broken do you have to be to protest against safer streets? President Donald Trump has vowed to bring order to the nation’s capital, yet Democrats bristle at the one federal action they’ve apparently never wanted to seize for themselves. For decades they told us D.C. deserved statehood. Now that Trump is taking responsibility for law and order, suddenly they retreat.
The irony runs deeper. Mexico refuses to take back its “working class,” while Democrats refuse to federalize D.C. policing. The one time they might welcome federal control, they balk — because Trump is the guy enforcing it.
D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith even admitted she doesn’t understand what “chain of command” means. This is the same woman who served as the department’s chief equity officer before becoming chief. If she can’t figure out who’s in charge, how can anyone else? This is what happens when the left prizes ideology over competence. Throw away your Bibles and your Constitution, kids — we’re going for a ride!
Next stop: Minneapolis. Mayoral candidate Omar Fateh campaigns openly for a Marxist revolution, joining voices like New York’s Zohran Mamdani. They no longer bother to hide their intent. They say the quiet part loud: They want a world where you live under chains.
A decade ago, such a platform would have been a political death wish. Suggesting Democrats were headed down that road would have branded you a “conspiracy theorist.” Today, Democrats think they can win elections on it.
So here’s the pattern: Mexico won’t take back its own “industrious” citizens. Washington, D.C., Democrats prefer their largely black constituency to live under siege by criminals rather than accept Trump’s help. And in Minneapolis, a leading candidate runs on a platform of putting Somalia first.
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We tell ourselves we can laugh this off as fringe madness — as long as it’s not in our back yard. But that’s denial. The threat is real, and it’s aimed at our children, if we last that long. This is invasion by increments: more foreigners, more crime, more leaders pretending they don’t know what a chain of command is. Like drums in the deep, the orcs are coming.
What should we do? Whether foreign enemies or domestic ones, whether illegal aliens or corrupt bureaucrats, the answer is the same.
Arrests.
The angry young men Trump just won over demand accountability. Without it, no economic boom, no culture war victory, no campaign slogan will hold them. Fail here and Republicans risk losing the House, neutering Trump’s presidency, and unleashing the very invasion already being planned.
Those who shrug at the chain of command will happily discard the Declaration of Independence next. They will crush the laws of nature and nature’s God. They will trample the Creator’s endowments under a mob now warming up and waiting in the wings.
There must be consequences. There must be arrests.
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