General Motors‘ CEO Mary Barra has reaffirmed the company’s commitment to US manufacturing as automakers navigate the impact of US tariffs imposed last year.
In an interview with Fox Business on Thursday — and when questioned if she was disappointed that the auto tariffs will remain in place — Mary Barra stated that GM has increased its US content manufacturing by 27% in the last five years.
“There are some parts that are only made [overseas], but for the last five years we’ve been working to have more parts in this country,” she stated, adding that “the content that we get from China for direct parts is less than 3%.”
Even before the recent trade policy changes, GM already was “on a process to have more resiliency in this country, and we’re just going to continue on that as we move forward,” Barra noted.
US Manufacturing Push
Barra said it is important for the United States to maintain a strong domestic manufacturing base, noting that the auto industry helped create the country’s middle class.
To her, “having a strong manufacturing base for jobs here, and also making sure we control and innovate and win in the technology race, is going to be very important, because these vehicles are also important from a national defense perspective.”
Barra thinks “this is where the President and I are aligned, because we do believe that we need to have strong manufacturing and frankly, we need to level the playing field from a US perspective.”
Signaling that there’s been tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers globally, she said that the US duties are “one tool to help us enable that and level the playing field.”
“We’re seeing growth from a customer perspective, share growth in both our gas-powered and our EVs, I think we’re well positioned to win,” Barra said.
The CEO then clarified that she meant it “not only in the US, where we sell more cars than anyone else and employ more employees than anyone else, but we’re set up to win globally as well.”
Tariff Impact
Upon disclosing its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 financial results on Tuesday, General Motors said it was able to offset more than 40% of its $3.1 billion tariff impact last year.
The company’s expected headwinds total around $6 billion this year, including $3.5 billion from tariffs, as GM expects an additional quarter of tariff exposure, according to its shareholder deck.
According to Barra, they are working to offset further impact “by making changes, leveraging some excess capacity that we have in this country.”
“Just yesterday, we announced that we are going to be building the next-generation internal combustion engine [ICE] or gas engine for full-size trucks in upstate New York,” she stated.
At “just under $900 million,” the investment in the Tonawanda Propulsion plant is “the most significant engine investment we’ve made in history,” the CEO highlighted, as she reiterated that GM is “investing in this country, and we’re making those decisions as we go.”
EV Production
The $888 million investment to build the next-generation V8 engine marks a shift from a previously announced $300 million commitment to electric vehicle production at the plant, in 2023.
When questioned about that, and amid a restructure in its EV business that has led to an impairment of over $7 billion, Barra said “we’re guided by where the consumer is.”
“We started to look a while ago, saying we can’t get the regulations out in front of where the customer is,” the CEO pointed out, saying that “what we’re about is offering customers choice.”
“We have great internal combustion engine or gas vehicles. We have great EV vehicles. So we’re meeting the customer in the marketplace where they are,” Barra added.
In early 2025, General Motors announced that it was investing $4 billion to expand production of petrol-powered vehicles in several of its US factories, as demand was higher.
It included its plants in Orion, Fairfax and Spring Hill — which were all producing electric vehicles.
Last year, GM‘s CEO also revealed at the third-quarter earnings call that the company was halting BrightDrop production, which affected over 1,000 jobs at CAMI Assembly, in Canada.
Commenting on higher demand for its electric vehicles, for which sales have jumped 48% in 2025, Barra warned that it is “leveled off and maybe starting to go down a little bit.”
” I think we have such a customer-focused portfolio of gas-powered vehicles or electric vehicles, we’re growing both,” she said.
North America
GM is choosing to produce domestically, which has resulted in the layoffs of thousands of people in Canada.
Besides the CAMI Assembly late last year, GM confirmed on Wednesday it will go ahead with a previously announced layoff of 750 workers at its Oshawa plant, with over 1,500 other jobs affected in the supply chain.
The job cuts, first announced last May, had been delayed due to strong demand for the Chevrolet Silverado pickup, which is assembled there.
According to a The Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday, Barra has also criticized Ottawa’s tariff deal with China, which she says is counter to building a strong North American manufacturing footprint.
On Thursday’s interview, the company’s CEO stated that “about 80% of our parts are USMCA compliant.”
As of mid-2025, GM produced about 30% of vehicles entering the US market in Mexico and Canada.
