Global automakers hail more ships as trade war heats up

DETROIT/LONDON/SHANGHAI, July 7, (RTRS): Automakers are scrambling to ship vehicles to the United States to pre-empt possible higher tariffs, according to port data, port officials and logistics companies.

Data from a number of US ports showed a surge in vehicle exports and imports in May, as US President Donald Trump ratcheted up pressure on China and Europe to drop tariffs on US vehicles and make other changes to their trade practices. May is the most recent month for which figures are available.

In the United States, the ports of Baltimore, Jacksonville, Florida; and Brunswick, Georgia – the three leading US ports for importing automobiles – in May unloaded a combined 23,000 more cars than they did a year earlier. Auto exports out of Baltimore and Jacksonville that month were up 39 percent and 19 percent, respectively, port officials said.

At the port of Long Beach, whose auto customers include Toyota Motor Corp and also Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz, vehicle imports were up 3.4 percent in May, but exports were down 24 percent at 1,679 units.

Vehicle imports in Norfolk, Virginia, rose more than 350 percent to 3,782 vehicles, partly due to General Motors Co importing some cars from Mexico by sea to circumvent US rail network problems.

According to DataStream, which has weekly railcar loading data by product type, the four-week rolling sum of automobile car loadings hit a 14-month high in early-to-mid-May.

The increase in vehicles landing in the United States was not preceded by a surge in sales. US sales of some European and Asian autos, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, are flat to down this year.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota and Nissan Motor Co Ltd did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump said on Friday his administration's investigation into whether to increase tariffs on cars from the European Union and other trading partners would be completed in three to four weeks.

Last week two major auto trade groups warned that imposing tariffs on imported vehicles would cost hundreds of thousands of auto jobs, dramatically hike prices on vehicles and threaten industry spending on self-driving cars.

Even without tariffs, automakers and analysts were already expecting US new vehicle sales to fall in 2018 versus last year, creating a highly competitive market.