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WASHINGTON: US automaker Tesla has warned that it and other major American exporters are exposed to retaliatory tariffs that could be leveled in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs.
The Tesla comments reflect those of many US businesses concerned by Trump’s tariffs, but is notable because it is from Tesla.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, has been leading the White House effort to shrink the size of the federal government. The billionaire heads up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
The comments were made in a letter to the US Trade Representative’s Office and available on the office’s web site. Dated Tuesday, it is among hundreds sent by companies to the office about US trade policy.
It is not clear who at Tesla wrote the letter, which is unsigned but is on a company letterhead. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.
Tesla says it is important to ensure that the Trump administration’s efforts to address trade issues “do not inadvertently harm US companies.”
It says it is eager to avoid retaliation of the type it faced in prior trade disputes, which resulted in increased tariffs on electric vehicles imported into countries subject to US tariffs.
“US exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to US trade actions,” Tesla said in the letter. “For example, past trade actions by the United States have resulted in immediate reactions by the targeted countries, including increased tariffs on EVs imported into those countries.”
Trump is considering imposing significant tariffs on vehicles and parts made around the world in early April.
Tesla warns that even with aggressive localization of the supply chain, “certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the United States.”
The automaker adds that companies will “benefit from a phased approach that enables them to prepare accordingly and ensure appropriate supply chain and compliance measures are taken.”
“As a US manufacturer and exporter, Tesla encourages USTR to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices,” the EV maker says.
Autos Drive America, a trade group representing major foreign automakers including Toyota, Volkswagen , BMW, Honda and Hyundai , warned USTR in separate comments that imposing “broad-based tariffs will disrupt production at US assembly plants.”
The group added, “automakers cannot shift their supply chains overnight, and cost increases will inevitably lead to some combination of higher consumer prices, fewer models offered to consumers and shut-down US production lines, leading to potential job losses across the supply chain.”

WASHINGTON: The US government, already shaken by Donald Trump’s radical reforms, could begin shutting down entirely this weekend as Democrats grapple with the option of opposing the president’s federal funding plans — at the risk this blows up in their faces.
With a Friday night deadline to fund the government or allow it to start winding down its operations, the Senate is set for a crunch vote ahead of the midnight cut-off on a Trump-backed bill passed by the House of Representatives.
The package would keep the lights on through September, but Democrats are under immense pressure from their own grassroots to defy Trump and reject a text they say is full of harmful spending cuts.
“If it shuts down, it’s not the Republicans’ fault. We passed a bill... If there’s a shutdown, even the Democrats admit it will be their fault,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.
A handful of Democrats in Trump-supporting states — worried that they would be blamed over a stoppage with no obvious exit ramp — appear ready to incur the wrath of their own supporters by backing down.
But the vote remains on a knife edge, with many Democrats yet to reveal their decision.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who voted against a bill to avert a shutdown as recently as 18 months ago, urged the minority party to “put partisan politics aside and do the right thing.”
“When the government shuts down, you have government employees who are no longer paid, you have services that begin to lag. It brings great harm on the economy and the people,” he told Fox News.
The funding fight is focused on opposition to Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), unofficially spearheaded by tech mega-billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, which is working to dramatically reduce the size of the government.
DOGE aims to cut federal spending by $1 trillion this year and claims to have made savings so far of $115 billion through lease terminations, contract cancelations and firing federal workers.
Its online “wall of receipts” accounts for a tiny portion of that total, however, and US media outlets have found its website to be riddled with errors, misleading math and exaggerations.
Grassroots Democrats, infuriated by what they see as the SpaceX and Tesla CEO’s lawless rampage through the federal bureaucracy, want their leaders to stand up to DOGE and Trump.
The funding bill is likely to need support from at least eight Democrats in the Senate, but its Republican authors ignored the minority party’s demands to protect Congress’s authority over the government’s purse strings and rein in Musk.
Washington progressive representative Pramila Jayapal told CNN there would be a “huge backlash” against Senate Democrats supporting the bill.
Several top Democrats have warned, however, that a shutdown could play into Musk’s hands, making further lay-offs easier and distracting from DOGE’s most unpopular actions, which just this week has included firing half the Education Department’s workforce.
“Now it’s a (bill) that we all agree we don’t like — but for me we can’t ever allow the government to shut down,” Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman told CNN, warning that a recession could follow.
Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-member Senate.
Legislation in the upper chamber requires a preliminary ballot with a 60-vote threshold — designed to encourage bipartisanship — before final passage, which only needs a simple majority.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told his members privately on Thursday he will vote yes at the preliminary stage, according to congressional media outlet Punchbowl News.
He and Fetterman are the only Democrats committed to allowing the bill to move forward, and Schumer has not ordered his members to follow suit.
But others could cross the aisle if Republicans allow amendment votes on their legislative priorities.
Each would fail, but it is a face-saving exercise that would allow Democrats to tell their activists at home that they fought for their principles.
It is not clear however that this would shield them from the criticism that they bent the knee to Trump and Musk.