UK carmaker Jaguar Land Rover admits impact of President Trump’s tariffs on cars imported into the US will lead to lower full-year profit margins. Tony McDonough reports

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) says US automotive tariffs will likely push down its full-year profit margins.

This week the company, which employs more than 3,500 people at its car assembly plant at Halewood in Merseyside, lowered its fiscal 2026 earnings before interest and taxes margins forecast to 5%to 7% from the previous forecast of 10%.

This revised EBIT margin forecast is also below JLR’s reported 8.5% margin for the previous fiscal year which ended March 31, 2025.

In May JLR welcomed the new trade agreement between the UK and US which saw tariffs on automotive imports into the states set at 10%. Only weeks earlier President Trump had announced a 25% tariff on new cars.

This set alarm bells ringing in the UK automotive sector and especially at JLR for which the US is a key market. JLR temporarily suspended exports to America following Trump’s announcement but resumed them shortly before the trade deal was agreed.

JLR, which is embarking on a major electrification programme, sells more than a quarter of its vehicles each year to the US market. It said this week that it was continuing to engage with both the US and UK governments over the trade deal.

Pre-tax profits at the company in the three months to March 31, 2025, the final quarter of its financial year, hit £875m – up from £661m a year ago.

This was despite revenues in the quarter falling 1.7% to £7.7bn year-on-year. Full-year revenue was also flat at £29bn. However, full-year pre-tax profits surged 15% to £2.5bn.