Does a video on YouTube confirm that three Japanese car manufacturers publicly announced the decision to exit the U.S. market, facing tariffs planned to be imposed by the Trump Administration? No, that's not true: The clip did not offer any specific details of the purported statement. Lead Stories found no press releases or credible media reports confirming the rumor. Talking to Lead Stories, Nissan's representative denied the claim.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) on YouTube where it was published on May 6, 2025, under the title:
The caption continued:
Toyota CEO Koji Sato, Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida, and Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe recently announced that Toyota, Nissan, and Honda will no longer sell vehicles in the United States, shocking the entire automotive industry. This stunning statement comes only days after newly elected US President Donald Trump imposed severe new tariffs on international trade partners, making it prohibitively expensive for foreign automakers to continue operating in the US market.
This is what the video looked like on YouTube at the time of writing:
(Source: YouTube screenshot by Lead Stories)
Starting at the 00:23 mark, the voice-over repeated the same claim but offered no direct quotes from the supposed statement (or statements) and did not cite any other specific source of information.
Manual searches for press releases on corporate websites of Toyota (archived here), Honda (archived here) and Nissan (archived here) did not show the supposed announcement.
When asked about the claim reviewed in this fact check, Nissan Vice President for Communications in the U.S. and Canada Brian Brockman (archived here) told Lead Stories via email on May 8, 2025:
Untrue. More than half of Nissan's sales in the U.S. are vehicles produced at our plants in Tennessee and Mississippi, and we continue to offer consumers a broad lineup of vehicles including sedans, SUVs and trucks.
We have ample inventory at our Nissan dealerships across the country, and we continue to produce new vehicles based on the demand in the market. We are also taking steps to leverage our production capacity here in the U.S.
Furthermore, contrary to the video on YouTube, Makoto Uchida stopped being the Nissan CEO on April 1, 2025, according to the company's website (archived here).
On May 8, 2025, the spokesperson for Honda Chris Abbruzzese also refuted the claim reviewed in this article via emal:
The posts are false. Honda has been producing automobiles in America for over 40 years and, in 2024, nearly two-thirds (65%) of Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the U.S. were built here, with 99% built in North America.
Searches across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) and here (archived here) did not show corroborating reports from credible media outlets. A single exact match came from a website (archived here) that cited a May 8, 2025, post (archived here) on X that lacked links to the story's origin and promoted Bitcoin.
Broad Google searches for the names of the three companies across Bloomberg (archived here), the Wall Street Journal (archived here), Reuters (archived here) the AP (archived here) and Automotive Dive (archived here) for the period between Donald Trump's second inauguration and this writing did not lead to reports mentioning the purported joint withdrawal from the U.S. market.
In March 2025, Snopes (archived here) reported that Toyota and Honda denied similar speculations about a plan to shut down their plants in the U.S.
Lead Stories reached out to Toyota for additional comments. If we get a response, this article will be updated as appropriate.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks concerning the topic of U.S. tariffs can be found here.
