Stellantis’s Tariff Plan: Cut Jobs and Reward Shareholders
Stellantis used the Trump administration’s tariffs as an excuse to lay off nearly 1,000 workers. Two weeks later, the automaker announced a $2.26 billion payout to its shareholders.
The Stellantis Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, on August 23, 2024. (Jeff Kowalsky / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The automaker behind Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles just announced a $2.26 billion payout to its shareholders — less than two weeks after the company used President Donald Trump’s new auto tariffs to lay off nearly a thousand American workers.
On April 4, Stellantis, one of the country’s “Big Three” automakers, announced the temporary layoffs at five US factories and production pauses at facilities in Canada and Mexico. The Dutch conglomerate, which subsumed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2021, told its employees it had “decided to take some immediate actions” in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which included a 25 percent tax on auto imports.
“With the current path of painful tariffs and overly rigid regulations, the American and European car industries are being put at risk,” said John Elkann, chairman of Stellantis’s board of directors, at the company’s April 15 general assembly meeting.
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