Almost six out of 10 people (59%) say they are less likely to buy a car from a country imposing tariffs on UK-made models.
This month’s Startline Used Car Tracker shows that 32% believe this a good way to fight back against tariffs, 18% that tariffs could badly affect UK car sales abroad and 16% want to support UK manufacturers.
However, 15% doubt that this kind of boycott would have any effect on tariffs being imposed, 14% believe that UK cars sales won’t be seriously affected and 5% don’t feel the need to support UK motor manufacturers.
Paul Burgess, CEO at Startline Motor Finance, said: “While the actions so far taken by the US are quite limited, tariffs are a subject that have been receiving a lot of attention in the press lately and motor manufacturing is certainly one area where it appears President Trump is looking to use them to reshape imports and exports. This has come on top of tussles between China and the EU when it comes to electric vehicle tariffs at the end of last year.
“Our research shows that the public takes quite a dim view of this kind of economic protectionism and a majority would proactively fight back by boycotting the cars of any country that imposed tariffs on UK manufacturers.
“The main issue here is that the country most likely to impose tariffs is the US and we buy very few US-made vehicles here, despite some concerted efforts by major manufacturers over the years to change that. There are just not many cars to boycott.
“Probably the Trump view would be that we should be buying cars from the US to balance out trade but these vehicles have been largely rejected by UK buyers in the past purely because they didn’t meet their needs or expectations.”
The Startline Used Car Tracker is compiled monthly for Startline Motor Finance by APD Global Research. This time, 306 consumers and 58 dealers were questioned.
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