One of our region's most vital industries is at a crucial point President Donald Trump's trade tariffs have already has a significant worldwide economic impact Inside Ford’s Halewood manufacturing facility (Image: Liverpool Echo ) It has been a period of uncertainty and worry for the UK's car manufacturing industry. On April 2, US President Donald Trump unveiled a range of trade tariffs in a speech at the White House, with a 10% "baseline" import tax slapped on every country that sends goods to the US. This meant the UK will be hit with the 10% tariff on all exports. Meanwhile, car, steel and aluminium exports will all come under a 25% tariff. This has serious ramifications for the UK, as the US is the second largest export market for cars made in this country, behind the European Union. ‌ Article continues below It also has the potential to hit our region harshly. Car manufacturing has been at the forefront of our local economy for decades - Halewood's Ford and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plants date back to the 1960s, as does Ellesmere Port's (technically not in Merseyside, but on the Wirral peninsula) Vauxhall site. They have employed thousands of people in our region over the past 60 years and it seems they are in a healthy position. Though there have been fears about the future of these plants in recent years as British car production has reduced in size, the drive towards electric vehicles (the UK government intends to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by the 2030s) appears to be proving very beneficial for the factories either side of the Mersey. In September, the ECHO reported that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) announced a huge £500 million investment in the transformation of its historic factory in Halewood. The company is modifying its plant for the production of electric vehicles. ‌ JLR had already invested £250m and commissioned one million hours of construction work at Halewood over the 12 months before September, extending the site by 32,364 sq m to produce medium-sized electric luxury SUVs. The factory has been fitted with technology including new EV build lines, 750 autonomous robots, ADAS calibration rigs, laser alignment technology and the latest cloud based digital plant management systems to oversee production. The works already carried out will enable the parallel production of internal combustion, hybrid and pure electric vehicles at Halewood. The further £250m will be invested over the coming years as JLR plans to electrify all of its brands by 2030, with the aim of achieving carbon net zero across its supply chain, products and operations by 2039. Halewood will eventually become the company's first all-electric production facility. Across the Mersey, the Ellesmere Port plant has been in operation since 1962 and was known as the home of the Vauxhall Astra for more than 40 years. Operated by Vauxhall's owners Stellantis, the plant is now the UK’s first electric vehicle-only manufacturing plant and makes compact electric vans including the Citroën ë-Berlingo, Vauxhall Combo Electric, Opel Combo Electric, Peugeot E-Partner and Fiat Professional E-Doblo. ‌ In November, Stellantis announced it was pumping £50m into the site as it plans to move all van production in the UK to the Wirral peninsula. It came as Stellantis decided to close Vauxhall’s historic Luton site. However, it secures the future of the Mersey site, which today employs more than 1,000 people. A Vauxhall Combo Electric positioned at the end of Ellesmere Port's production line (Image: Handout/Stellantis via Getty Images ) And back in Halewood, Ford last month began production on three new electric vehicles, which will be powered by units constructed at its Merseyside plant. Among the vehicles is the new all-electric Ford Puma Gen-E, which was unveiled here in December. ‌ It will be powered by the eDrive power unit built at Halewood and assembled at the Ford Otosan plant in Craiova in Romania. It comes after £380m investment – including £30.9m of governmental support via the Automotive Transformation Fund - to transform Halewood from a traditional transmissions facility into an electric vehicle component manufacturing plant. The Halewood facility now has the capacity to produce 420,000 eDrive units annually to power Ford’s electrification goals. On the face of it, all three plants are well-positioned to benefit from a future with electric vehicles at its forefront. However, the full impact of President Trump's tariffs is yet to be seen and there is fear in the industry that they could result in job losses across the sector in the UK, such is the importance of the American market. Tom Jervis, consumer reporter at motoring publication Auto Express, has said it is the "blue-collar worker and consumer that will be affected the most". He said the tariffs "could, in a very worst case scenario, see UK factories close in favour of new facilities being opened up in the US, or perhaps more likely, instigate hundreds or even thousands of job losses as firms scramble to cut manufacturing costs further". ‌ Likewise, Asked by Nick Ferrari on LBC if up to 25,000 jobs in the motor industry could go following the tariffs, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds last week said: "I know everyone in the automotive sector in particular will have those concerns. ‌"The products that we have, in the main, are very successful at exporting to the US, from Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, Aston Martin, these are often the higher value parts of the market, so the impact of tariffs will be slightly different to those. "What I am committed to – and what I genuinely believe we can deliver – is a position where not only are we not in a position where we’ve got to think about job losses or about the loss of exports, but we can strengthen that relationship. That is what we’re committed to doing." ‌ JLR exported about 38,000 cars to the US in the third quarter of 2024 – almost equal to the amount sold to the UK and the EU combined. Last weekend, it announced it would pause shipments to the USA as it considers how to address the trading terms of President Trump's tariffs. The Jaguar Land Rover site at Halewood (Image: LIVERPOOL ECHO ) In a statement to the BBC, a spokesperson for JLR said: "As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions, including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans." ‌ In an update on Friday, a JLR spokesperson told the ECHO: "The USA is an important market for JLR's luxury brands and 25% tariffs on autos remain in place. As we work to address the new US trading terms with our business partners, we are enacting our planned short-term actions, as we develop our mid- to long-term plans. We will give a further update at our full year results in May." The spokesperson did not mention how that could impact Halewood. A Ford spokesperson told the ECHO that the tariffs would impact the industry but believed the company was well positioned to deal with the challenges. Halewood’s production capacity means 70% of Ford electric vehicles sold in Europe, including models such as the E-Transit Custom, the E-Tourneo Custom and the Puma Gen-E, will be powered by UK-manufactured technology. The Ford Puma Gen-E, which is the electric version of the UK's best selling car, will be powered by the Halewood-built eDrive. ‌ A Ford spokesperson said: "With the U.S. President announcing new tariffs this week, we are carefully reviewing the implications for our business globally. While there is no doubt these tariffs will have an impact on the automotive industry, we believe Ford is relatively well-positioned to navigate these changes. The all-electric Ford Puma Gen-E was unveiled at Halewood (Image: Ford ) "In the U.S. Ford has invested in innovation and manufacturing since our founding. Ford is number one in U.S. vehicles assembled, number one in hourly autoworkers employed and number one in vehicles exported from the U.S. to other markets. ‌ "In Europe, we have limited imports from other markets, and the majority of Ford vehicles sold in Europe are produced in Europe. Ford has been manufacturing in Europe for almost a century, and we will continue to make thoughtful choices to help protect our business and operations around the world." The ECHO that Stellantis does not believe tariffs should impact its work at Ellesmere Port, which primarily supplies the UK and Europe. A spokesperson said: "Stellantis continues to assess the effects of the recently announced U.S. tariffs on imported vehicles and will continue to engage with the U.S. Administration on these policy changes. "Immediate actions we must take include temporarily pausing production at some of our Canadian and Mexican assembly plants, which will have an impact to several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations."