Trucking news and briefs for Monday, Oct. 20, 2025:
The Trump administration on Friday, Oct. 17, provided some clarity around the 25% Section 232 tariffs announced for medium- and heavy-duty truck imports.
The new tariffs, scheduled to take effect Nov. 1, will apply to the full value of Class 3 to Class 8 trucks that do not qualify for preferential treatment under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). USMCA-compliant medium- and heavy-duty truck parts, and all U.S. content, will be exempt from the tariffs.
“For medium- and heavy-duty trucks that qualify for preferential tariff treatment under the USMCA, the tariff will only apply to the value of the non-U.S. content in the vehicle,” according to a Fact Sheet published by the White House. The tariff on truck parts will apply to key parts, including engines, transmissions, tires, and chassis.
As previously reported, all the major North American heavy-truck manufacturers are global companies with assembly operations in the U.S., but many supplement those plants with sister facilities in Mexico. Under the USMCA free trade agreement -- a deal Trump signed in 2018 that went into effect in 2020, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) -- those trucks have generally been allowed into the U.S. tariff-free.
The USMCA exemption could be temporary, as Trump’s proclamation added that USMCA-compliant medium- and heavy-duty truck parts will not be subject to tariffs until "the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, establishes a process to apply tariffs to the non-U.S. content of the parts."
Trump’s proclamation also “incentivizes domestic medium- and heavy-duty truck production by offering an offset to a portion of tariffs for medium- and heavy-duty truck parts equal to 3.75% of the aggregate value of all trucks assembled in the United States from 2025 through 2030,“ the White House noted. “This percentage reflects the duty that would be owed when a 25% tariff is applied to 15% of the value of a U.S.-assembled medium- and heavy-duty truck.”
