Opinion: Buick Dying From Tariffs Would Be Justice Served

A storm of media tears erupted earlier this month as journalists realized out of all the GM brands, Buick stood to lose the most from tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. After all, it wasn’t fair that the American icon would die off all because of an international trade war.

President Trump is contemplating tariff relief for automakers.

Immediately upon seeing this news, all I could do was laugh, bitterly. Justice was finally being served after so many years of wondering if it would come at all. GM had sown the seeds of what might turn out to be Buick’s destruction and it’s about time.

I don’t particularly hate Buick, but I do loathe how and why it was chosen to be saved when GM entered bankruptcy under the Obama administration. The reasoning back then was Buick had to be preserved because it was popular in China, the largest car market in the world, which would allow GM to expand there.

For a long time, the US market has been an afterthought to Buick. That’s why three of the brand’s top-selling models are made overseas in China and South Korea. And that’s why the tariffs could lead to the death of Buick.

Back when GM was deciding which brands to kill off, I and many other enthusiasts argued Pontiac should’ve been preserved. GM would’ve had an answer to Dodge’s upswing in popularity and could’ve played well in the muscle car war, instead of just screwing up the Camaro so it wouldn’t upstage big brother Corvette.

So many in the media and certain circles treated that suggestion with derision. After all, Pontiac was for “white trash” and rightly deserved to be discarded. Buick was cosmopolitan, beloved in a foreign market, which was automatically better.

Now the shoe’s on the other foot. US consumers have largely rejected Buick, although the brand has seen some recent success. But this strategy of catering to Asian markets, especially to China, is backfiring. The Chinese are engaging in increasingly hyper nationalistic buying habits because they, unlike Americans, don’t hate their own domestic brands.

The bitter irony has a bit of sweetness to it, although that’s tinged by the untimely and unjustified death of Pontiac. That move alone showed the sneering contempt GM brass had for the average American consumer and our love of muscle cars.

I’m glad that decision hasn’t aged well. GM could’ve had its answer to the Hellcat, could still be offering that and cleaning up, but instead it kept Buick around to appeal to the Chinese, who are themselves turning away from it at the same time tariffs squeeze the top models from this market.

You reap what you sow and GM is enjoying the fruits of its decisions years later.

Image via GM