During President Donald Trump’s first term, he didn’t levy any tariffs as extreme as last week’s global 10% one. But he did roll out a 25% tariff on Chinese-built cars. The move was suspiciously direct because only one Detroit automaker was importing cars from China.

Buicks are big business in China. For some reason, the Chinese market loves the brand. So GM has engineered multiple compact crossovers, including many of its earliest plug-in-hybrid powertrains, for China. One especially successful model was the 2014-present Buick Envision.

By 2016, GM began to wonder if the little crossover would sell in the U.S. too. Instead of tooling up a new plant, it threw a bunch of Envisions from its Yantai, China plant onto a boat. This made it the first Chinese-import sold by one of the Detroit Three. (The second was the 2021 Lincoln Nautilus).

In 2018, President Trump threatened a 25% tariff on all cars imported from China. (AKA, the Buick Envision). General Motors begged and pleaded for an exemption. It said, “Relocating manufacturing to the United States for this project is not feasible.” When the White House didn’t budge, it added, “A 25 percent tariff on the Envision may eliminate the vehicles from Buick’s U.S. offerings. This would strike a significant blow to the Buick brand.” Still, no mercy.

The tariff went into effect. GM continued selling the Buick Envision in the U.S. And it didn’t jack up the MSRP. Instead it ate the cost of the tariff. General Motors played tariff-chicken and lost.

Today, 56% of cars sold in the U.S. are assembled in the U.S. But even those vehicles include tons of foreign parts. So the latest set of tariffs will affect much more than the Buick Envision. Buick’s other offerings could offset the price of the 2018 Envision tariffs. Will it be able to keep MSRPs level when its cost goes up for every single model? We are about to find out. See The WSJ’s deep dive on how tariffs will affect “American made” cars in the video below: