'It's going to get worse': American car buyers brace for sweeping auto tariffs

22 minutes ago Share Save Ana Faguy & Brandon Drennon BBC News, Washington DC Share Save

Watch: US drivers react to Trump's new auto tariff

For two years, Jeannie Dillard has saved what she can on her fixed income to replace the vehicle that was stolen from her home and found totalled a few miles away. She looked around a used car dealership in Virginia on Thursday, peering at sticker prices with a newfound worry: blanket tariffs on foreign cars and car parts that experts warn could drive up prices in the US. They kick in next week. She'd like to buy a car now, she said, but: "I have to wait until my finances improve". Ms Dillard is among the plethora of Americans bracing for expected economic turbulence under President Donald Trump's sweeping auto tariffs - an unprecedented US trade policy maneuver. "It took me a long time to save up for the last car," she said. "If prices get too high, I'm obviously not going to buy something that I can't afford." "We'll just have to wait and see."

Robin Marshall (left) loaned her car to Jeannie Dillard, her "hop-along bestie", so that Dillard could shop for a new car

On Wednesday, Trump announced new import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts entering the US from overseas that go into effect on 2 April. Charges on businesses importing vehicles are expected on 3 April, and taxes on parts are set to start in May or later. Trump and members of his administration have argued that tariffs will lead to "tremendous growth" and increase jobs in the US. But experts and automakers have warned in dire terms that tariffs could raise prices for US consumers, amplifying the stress of an already sluggish economy. How will carmakers be affected by Trump's tariffs?

Trump announces 25% tariffs on car imports to US Mohamad Husseini, co-owner of a used car dealership in Maryland, said he expects the additional tariff costs to get passed down to the consumer. "The prices in the wholesale market have skyrocketed already," he told the BBC. "It's going to get worse." A car that would sell for $13,000 (£10,000) might rise to $14,500 (£11,200) because of the tariffs, Mr Husseini said. He predicts consumers will see prices increase in the next three to six weeks. The auto tariffs will likely force car dealers like Mr Husseini to raise prices. "We all still have bills to pay, mouths to feed and employees to pay," he said. At another car dealership, Robin Sloan was hoping to get a deal before prices increased. She said she probably would have waited until the summer to go car shopping, but "with the tariffs, I decided I should go out and look now". She rejected the Trump administration's claim that tariffs will cause Americans to buy US cars instead of foreign. "I don't think I would buy a car made in the United States just because of the tariffs, I think I would probably wait a few years until things settle down," she explained.

Robin Sloan

From car buyers to car dealers, the effects of tariffs will be widespread, for better or for worse, experts say. In the US, there are 908 motor vehicles per 1,000 people. About 92% of households own a vehicle. Car ownership is typically higher in the US than in Europe, surveys say, partly because in the absence of extensive public transport systems, many Americans do not have a choice in how they get around. They are also more than just a means of transportation. As symbols of both freedom and success, cars have a unique place in the national identity, from the show Pimp My Ride to Janice Joplin singing "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz". John Heitmann, a University of Dayton professor and automobile historian who, in his free time, likes to polish his 1982 Mercedes SL, said that tariffs will have an existential, as well as an economic, impact. "New cars are really out of the reach of a good number of Americans to begin with," he told the BBC. "Consumers will not benefit, prices will go up," particularly amongst more affordable vehicles made in Korea, like Hyundais, he said. As a vintage-car enthusiast, he said tariffs have added a layer of uncertainty to his hobby. "About 50 minutes ago, I got an email from a part supplier in the UK saying, 'Don't worry... they're not going to go up, probably,'" he said. "'We haven't seen anything in writing yet.' That's what they said." Higher-end imported vehicles, such as Audis, BMWs and Mercedes, will increase in price, too, Mr Heitmann said, though many of those who buy from such brands might be able to absorb a heftier price tag.

A 2024 study by the US International Trade Commission predicted that a 25% tariff on imports would reduce imports by almost 75%, while increasing average prices in the US by about 5%. The US imported about eight million cars last year - accounting for about $240bn (£186bn) in trade and roughly half of overall sales. Despite efforts from some car makers - including Ford and General Motors - to discourage Trump from enacting auto tariffs, the president is forging ahead. Some car makers are embracing Trump's tariffs, however. On Tuesday, Hyundai, the South Korean car-marker, announced it would invest $21bn (£16.3bn) in the US by building a new steel plant in Louisiana. Trump said the move is a "clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work". But the tariffs are likely to impact domestic cars as well. US auto manufacturing has been deeply intertwined with industries in Canada and Mexico for decades. Parts criss-cross the borders several times before they are assembled, which means that even a vehicle as iconically American as a Ford pickup truck could see a sticker price increase.

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Alex Warren was homeless and sleeping in friends' cars - now he's number one

23 minutes ago Share Save Mark Savage Share Save

Jimmy Fontaine Alex Warren has kept Chappell Roan off the top of the UK singles chart for the last two weeks

Alex Warren is on top of the world. Ordinary, a song he wrote for his wife Kouvr after their wedding last year, is at number one in six different countries. He has two more songs in the UK Top 40, and his UK tour has been upgraded to 5,000-capacity venues, due to insatiable demand. Backstage at the Hammersmith Apollo, the Californian singer is endearingly, humbly bewildered by the whole thing. "All of this is happening really quickly," he says. "I only wrote Ordinary three months ago. I'm honestly blown away." But the 24-year-old didn't arrive out of nowhere. He's one of the founders of the Hype House – a collaborative TikTok group who lived and worked together in the Los Angeles hills and shepherded millions of teenagers though the pandemic. You could easily to dismiss him as yet another social media influencer trying to break into the music industry. It's an accusation he's aware of, and prepared for. "I watched a lot of people, a lot of TikTokkers, make music and there was no meaning behind it. It was just something they decided to do," he says. "But I wanted to write about real things. No one else can sing my songs. I don't take other people's demos. This is all mine."

Getty Images The singer, enjoying his trip to the UK, sips tea on stage as he tells the crowd he "had a spud yesterday"

Even a passing glance at his discography proves him right. Warren's arena pop anthems are searingly honest, almost to a fault, drawing on his challenging childhood, and fairytale romance with Kouvr. His father died when he was nine years old, after a long struggle with kidney cancer. The loss sent his mother spiralling into alcoholism, something Warren only realised when he tried to clear up one of her coffee mugs. "It turned out to be alcohol," he says. "And the next day it was alcohol, and the next day it was alcohol, and at 4am it was alcohol, and when we were driving, it was alcohol." When he called her out on it, the addiction turned to abuse. "Every person struggling with addiction needs someone to blame it on, besides themselves, and I became that person," he says. When he was 18, she kicked him out. He was broke and homeless. Friends let him sleep in their cars – never their houses, because his mum had convinced their parents he was a trouble-maker. Around the same time, he was introduced to Instagram model Kouvr Annon by a friend on Snapchat. "We just clicked right away," he says. "I felt I could tell her everything, just after our first conversation." Within four months, Kouvr left her family in Hawaii, flew out to California and started living with Warren in a car.

Atlantic Records Alex and Kouvr re-staged the start of their relationship in the video for Give Me Love

Then, as now, they're an exceptionally cute couple – tender and funny and clearly besotted with one another. When they started posting videos of their romance online, people wanted to see more. In a span of six months, Warren gained more than a million followers on YouTube. Combined with the prank videos he'd filmed with his friends, he built a big enough audience to start earning money. "When I got my first cheque for $2,000 in a month, I was like, 'Holy cow, this is gonna change my life'," he recalls. Some of that money went into the creation of the Hype House in 2019. Warren came up with the name, and moved into the property with Annon and a bunch of young internet stars like Addison Rae, Charlie D'Amelio, Chase Hudson and Thomas Petrou. The collective introduced themselves in December 2019 with a photoshoot that mimicked Backstreet Boys video for I Want It That Way. By the end of the day, the hashtag #hypehouse was trending, and the mansion quickly became an incubator for viral videos.

Hype House The Hype House announced themselves to the world in Christmas 2019. Alex and Kouvr are on the far left of the photo.

The enterprise thrived during lockdown but, as individual members signed TV deals, or grew tired of the escalating demands for content, it started to fall apart. Warren and Annon left in 2022, citing a desire to "move on to the next chapter in their lives". Since then, rumours have swirled about behind-the-scenes drama at the house, with some members hinting at exploitation and mistreatment. "There was falling out," Warren told the Zach Sang show in 2023. "But a lot of us signed NDAs, so no-one's going to talk about it." He did, however, pour his frustrations into music. "How do you sleep at night?" he sings on the angst-ridden Burning Down, a song allegedly targeted at one of the Hype House's co-founders. "It scars forever when someone you called your friend / Shows you the truth can be so cold." Warren says he never made money from the Hype House. What it did give him, however, was a built-in audience for his music. "I think that's really rare," he says. "Usually, when someone goes from social media to music, they lose that fan base. "But I think a lot of people watched my YouTube videos because they were having a rough life and needed an escape. So when I started making music about my rough life, I think they identified with it even more."

Alex Warren Warren celebrated his first number one single with a trip back to the toilet where it all began... accompanied by the Official Charts' number one award.

Warren dreamt of a music career long before he entered the Hype House. Back when TikTok was called Music.ally, he'd even created a burner account to share his songs. "I didn't want to post on my main account, because I was terrified of failing," he explains. "As a kid, people bullied me for singing and doing talent shows and dedicating songs to my fifth grade girlfriend, you know? "So I posted on a random account I created, and I filmed myself singing on the toilet because I wanted to show I wasn't taking it seriously. "And the next day, I woke up and had 10 million views." His first release was 2021's One More I Love You, a song he started when he was 13 years old and coming to terms with his father's death. "I watched my sister go to a daddy-daughter dance without her dad, and that's when I realised, 'Oh, wait, my life is different'," he recalls. "I started mourning for the first time, and I didn't know how to process it, so I just went to the piano and played some chords. And that's kind of where I started learning how to write."

Getty Images Alex and Kouvr are on the road together as his music career takes off. He says they plan to start a family in the next couple of years.

'Hundreds feared dead in quake' and Reeves likened to Truss

12 minutes ago Share Save Share Save

DAILY EXPRESS The death toll from the earthquake which hit Myanmar and Thailand on Friday could be in the hundreds, with the Daily Express reporting the 7.7 magnitude quake caused tremors as far away as India and China. Thailand's capital Bangkok has been declared an emergency zone.

DAILY STAR The striking photo of a skyscraper's collapse at a work site in Bangkok features on a few front pages this morning, including the Daily Star's. Their report warns the death toll could be much, much higher- in the tens of thousands of victims.

THE TIMES While The Times features the quake photo, its main story is about police being sent to arrest a couple - one of whom is a Times journalist - after they complained about their kids' school. Police detained the pair in a cell for eight hours and questioned them for harassment for sending emails to the school leadership and being critical in a WhatsApp group. The article quotes freedom of speech advocates and the couple saying they never used threatening language.

I PAPER The i Paper leads on its own poll suggesting that following the welfare cuts announced this week, Rachel Reeves is less popular than the PM. The polling indicates half of the public oppose the measures - a level nearly as high as the 55% critical of Liz Truss's "mini budget" in 2022. Some 41% are said to believe the policies will leave their household worse off, but there is narrowly more support from voters for public spending cuts compared with future tax hikes.

DAILY MAIL The government's budget policies are also criticised in the Daily Mail. Their front page story links hikes in council tax, water and energy bills to the latest measures. The tabloid says it has done analysis that shows families could face an extra £1,000 in bills. The paper also features an opinion piece from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, taking her quotes critical of Labour directly for their headline: "They're making April Fools of us."

DAILY TELEGRAPH Canada's PM is accused on the Daily Telegraph front page of having plagiarised part of his Oxford economics thesis - an allegation Mark Carney has denied. His campaign team - he has called a snap election for 28 April - has called the plagiarism allegation an "irresponsible mischaracterisation" and his Oxford supervisor told the Telegraph there was "no evidence of plagiarism".

FINANCIAL TIMES Italy's prime minister says her country shouldn't have to choose between the US and Europe in an interview with the Financial Times, Giorgia Meloni's first with a foreign newspaper. The far-right leader says she's closer politically to Donald Trump than perhaps other European leaders and wants to avoid a transatlantic rift. She says the US "confrontation" with Europe on defence is a "stimulus" for the continent to take responsibility for its own security.

THE SUN Manchester City footballer Erling Haaland is accused of having caused suspected whiplash and concussion to a woman who donned a team mascot costume after he playfully knocked the back of her head. A club inquiry has cleared him of wrongdoing and police say there is no need for further action, but the Sun reports the woman is "furious".

THE MIRROR And The Mirror shares the last filmed message from TV star Paul O'Grady, in a video they say was taken just 20 minutes before he died. In his final clip, the 67-year-old actor thanked his fans.