Hyundai Motor's exports from US plant plunge amid tariff woes

Seoul, June 22 Hyundai Motor’s vehicle exports from its US plant plunged last month, industry data showed on Sunday, as the company accelerates production realignment strategies to cope with rising tariff tensions.

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama (HMMA), a U.S. production unit of the South Korean automaker, exported just 14 vehicles in June, a sharp decline from 1,303 units in the same month last year and 2,386 in May, according to the data, reports Yonhap news agency.

It marked the first time HMMA's monthly exports fell below 100 units since April 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

HMMA exported a total of 22,600 vehicles last year.

Industry insiders attributed the sharp decline to Hyundai's production realignment strategy aimed at mitigating the impact of Washington's tariff policies, which impose a 25 percent duty on all imported vehicles.

Hyundai Motor, which exported 637,000 vehicles to the United States last year, is reportedly considering redirecting U.S.-produced vehicles to the domestic market instead of exporting them overseas.

To reduce tariff exposure, the company has earlier announced plans to boost U.S. production capacity by expanding output at its Alabama and Georgia plants to meet local demand. At the same time, it will scale back production of U.S.-bound models at Kia Corp.'s plant in Mexico.

"In order to minimise the impact of U.S. tariffs, we have implemented measures to shift Tucson production from Mexico to HMMA and moved HMMA's Canadian-bound production to Mexico," a Hyundai official said during an earnings call in April.

In line with that shift, Hyundai shipped around 2,100 units of the Tucson crossover from Mexico in February, but that number dropped to 522 in March and has remained at zero since April.

Meanwhile, South Korea's automobile exports declined slightly in April from a year earlier, largely due to a sharp drop in shipments to the United States following Washington's imposition of steep tariffs on foreign-made cars, government data showed.

The value of outbound shipments of automobiles came to US$6.53 billion last month, down 3.8 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

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