(Reuters) -Nissan Motor said on Thursday it will not take new orders from the U.S. for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, following auto tariffs levied by U.S. President Donald Trump, in a drastic scale-back of its operations at a joint venture plant.
Nissan also said it will now maintain two shifts of production of the Rogue SUV at its Smyrna, Tennessee, plant after announcing in January it would end one of the two shifts this month.
The Japanese automaker will not accept any additional orders of the Infiniti QX50 and QX55 SUVs for the U.S. market produced at the COMPAS plant it has run together with Mercedes-Benz in Mexico. Nissan said production is expected to continue for those models sold in other markets.
It was not immediately clear how much of the production is sold in other markets. The two Infiniti models have only been exported from Mexico to the U.S., according to data from Mexico’s national statistics agency.
A Japan-based Nissan spokesperson said on Friday the models do go to other markets such as the Middle East and Canada, but could not immediately provide more details.
Trump’s 25% global car and truck tariffs took effect on Thursday.
Nissan has been struggling in the U.S. due to an ageing line-up and a lack of hybrid models. It is particularly exposed to the new tariffs as it exports the biggest number of cars from Mexico to the U.S. of any Japanese automaker.
Nissan’s troubles led it to slash its profit forecast three times in the financial year just ended and saw its debt downgraded to “junk” status.
Its new chief executive, 46-year-old Ivan Espinosa, a Mexican national who previously was its planning boss, has pledged to drastically cut the time the automaker needs to develop new cars.
Mercedes-Benz manufactures the GLB SUV at the COMPAS plant.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Daniel Leussink; Editing by Chris Reese and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
