Looks like these tariffs will not give Perodua and Proton any chance to enter the US auto market
Well it seems that we in Malaysia are getting a taste of our own medicine. While all these years we have been imposing taxes left right and centre on foreign built cars to allow a competitive advantage for our own local brands, Proton and Perodua, United States President, Donald Trump, has hit back at a bunch of other countries including a 24 percent reciprocal tariff on Malaysia.
So in February 2025, President Trump introduced a “Reciprocal Tariff” policy aimed at ensuring fair trade by imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners equivalent to about half those countries’ tariffs and non-tariff barriers against U.S. goods. This policy was designed to address perceived trade imbalances and protect American industries from unfair foreign trade practices.
Moreover, under this policy, Malaysia faced a 24 percent tariff rate, reflecting the U.S. assessment of Malaysia’s trade barriers and practices. This measure was part of a broader strategy affecting several Southeast Asian nations, with tariffs ranging from 32 to 49 percent. This will definitely negatively impact our exports there.
Of course, while countries like Canada seemingly took offence to this, looking at you President Trudeau, and hit back with tariffs of their own, we in Malaysia kind of had it coming, if you think about it. Not only are cars in general way too expensive in our country now but foreign built cars have so much tax on them that only the top 10 percent of Malaysians can own them.
On top of that, we Malaysians have grown so accustomed to all the sky high car prices here in Malaysia, the rest of the world is not so dejected as we are and generally never tolerate the kind of rubbish we tolerate mainly stemming from the greed of our politicians. As such, exports for Proton and Perodua in the U.S will now likely just be ignored by most American companies.
Obviously when Malaysia first introduced these taxes, it was to protect Proton and Perodua from foreign cars which typically were more well equipped at the time, but considering Proton has Geely as a partner and Perodua has Toyota backing it, the 2 brands no longer have any excuse to not be on par with global carmakers anymore, if not exceed them.
So at the end of the day the prices keep going up but the quality only drops, so our taxes may not affect other brands as much since their quality is maintained but considering our cars are already seen as inferior in some parts of the world coupled with the low quality in comparison, I think these tariffs will kill off any possible future Malaysian automotive presence in the U.S now. What do you think?
