President Trump’s tariffs have cost the auto industry about $35 billion dollars, according to a report by industry publication Automotive News.
Last year, on the day the president announced his tariff program, Jack Fink spoke with Don Herring, the owner of two Mitsubishi dealerships in North Texas. Recently, Jack went back to speak with Herring about the impact the tariffs have had on his dealerships and customers.
Herring said that in the year before tariffs, used car sales were just under half of his business at his dealership in Irving; Now, they are nearly 75 percent.
The following excerpts from their conversation are lightly edited for clarity.
Don Herring: There is no doubt that tariffs had an impact as automobile prices have gone up and the factories have worked really hard in 2026 to find ways to help mitigate that. And affordability is the big word of the day in the automotive industry.
Jack Fink: So even among automakers, affordability is a key issue.
Herring: Affordability is a key issue. We’ve seen Mitsubishi come out with products that’s decontented, that has less content, than products they had pre-tariff. But the prices are in line with what the products they had pre-tariff.
For example, our Outlander Sport pre-tariff had about a $25,000 price range. After the tariffs hit, they increased the price, they increased the destination [fee]. And we saw the price of that car go up a couple thousand dollars. They came out with a new Outlander Sport S model, which gets rid of the 18-inch alloy wheels and put some 16-inch steel wheels and hubcaps like a lot of people remember. But now it’s got a $24,995 price tag again. So you lose the alloy wheels, but the price is what that car was before the tariff.
Fink: And then you had another vehicle.
Herring: We had the Outlander LE model, which looks a lot like and has a lot of the same equipment as the pre-tariff Outlander Black Edition. And they cost exactly the same. The difference is this Outlander LE model doesn’t have Mitsubishi’s My Pilot Assist, which is their adaptive cruise control system. It has a standard, traditional type cruise control.
Fink: And so it’s almost more like a you’re giving people a choice. You don’t want to spend as much, here’s the option. Have customers noticed, and have they chosen the cheaper options?
Herring: In the Outlander Sport, which is the less expensive the two cars, we’ve seen people choosing the less expensive option. They seem to be more conscious about price than what wheels are on the car. We’re probably still selling more of the higher model Outlanders than we are the new Outlander LE.
But the factories, and it’s not just Mitsubishi, all the factories are really focused on affordability and whether that’s rebates, whether that’s submitted interest rates, whether that’s new, decontented models, like Mitsubishi is doing a lot of other manufacturers are also coming out with lower models that have a little bit less spec, so they can keep the prices similar to what we had pre-tariff.
This week’s full episode can be found below:
