Luxury carmaker Lotus to slash U.K. jobs amid U.S. tariffs

Lotus Eletre, an electric-hyper SUV. (Lotus Cars)

Chinese-owned luxury carmaker Lotus said Thursday that it planned to cut up to 550 U.K. jobs, in part over uncertainty caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The layoffs represent over 40 per cent of its 1,300 employees in Britain.

Lotus said the restructuring was necessary to “secure a sustainable future,” citing the “rapidly evolving automotive environment, which is seeing uncertainty with rapid changes in global policies, including tariffs.”

The carmaker, which is majority owned by Chinese auto giant Geely, has several sites in the U.K., including its headquarters in Hethel, eastern England.

Another Lotus factory is in Wuhan, China.

Automakers have been among the companies hit hardest by Trump’s tariff onslaught as he tries to bring auto production back to the United States.

Britain and the United States struck a trade deal in May under which a 27.5 per cent tariff rate on U.K. car exports dropped to 10 per cent for the first 100,000 vehicles per year.

But the levy remains higher than that placed on U.K. cars before Trump’s tariff blitz in April.

U.K. exports of vehicles to the United States rebounded in July following months of declines as the trade agreement came into force on June 30, industry data showed Thursday.