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Nissan has announced another round of brutal cost-cutting as Trump’s tariffs threaten to derail attempts to turn the struggling carmaker around.
The beleaguered Japanese giant said on Tuesday it would cut 20,000 jobs and cut its production facilities from 17 to 10 by 2027 as it slipped deeper into crisis.
The job losses include the 9,000 layoffs announced late last year as part of a turnaround plan to improve the automaker’s dire financial position.
The company reported a net loss of 671 billion Yen ($4.5 billion) for the 2024 financial year, and said it would not issue an operating profit forecast for 2025 because of uncertainties over US tariffs.
Nissan has come under intense pressure from Chinese automakers and has struggled to develop a compelling lineup of electric vehicles, despite pioneering the mass-market EV with the Nissan Leaf in 2010.
CEO Makoto Uchida was replaced by Nissan veteran Ivan Espinosa in March after the collapse of a $50 billion merger with rival Honda.
Espinosa is seeking cost reductions of 250 billion yen ($1.7 billion) with the new turnaround plan, but the Nissan boss faces an additional threat from the Trump administration’s tariff barrage.
The Japanese firm, which counts the US as one of its most important markets, is especially vulnerable to Trump’s 25% tariff on imported vehicles because it exports several models to the US from Mexico and Japan.
Nissan said on Tuesday it estimated the tariffs on imported vehicles would cost it 450 billion yen ($3 billion) this year without mitigation measures.
The company said it would boost US production capacity and prioritize retail sales of models assembled locally. Nissan also said it would shift some models affected by tariffs to other markets, in line with customer demand.
Nissan is not the only Japanese automaker that is bracing for the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
On Tuesday, Honda said the levies would cost it an estimated $3 billion and cut its operating profit forecast for the coming financial year by nearly 60%.
The company is also taking measures to ease the impact of the tariffs, including moving production of its Civic hybrid from Japan to the US.
Nissan and Honda did not respond to requests for comment, sent outside working hours.
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