VW May Pull Plans for US Audi Plant Absent Tariff Cuts, CEO Says

Volkswagen AG won’t go ahead with a planned Audi factory in the US unless automotive tariffs are reduced, Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper.

Audi has been weighing an American manufacturing site since 2023, initially encouraged by subsidies that would have made such an investment economically viable. That calculus has shifted as the Trump administration placed tariffs on European carmakers, which Blume said cost VW €2.1 billion ($2.5 billion) in the first nine months of 2025.

Volkswagen AG CEO Oliver Blume

Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

“Given an unchanged tariff burden, large additional investment cannot be funded,” Blume said in comments released on Sunday. “Reduction of ...