After a wave of rushed buying, driven by looming tariffs, US car sales have started to slow, weighing on carmakers.

New car sales fell by 300,000 in June from 15.6 million to 15.3 million, according to data released by Cox Automotive last month.

“Now we’ve got sales slowing because [the pre-tariff buying] surge pretty much pulled ahead a lot of people that might have been in the market this year, who wanted to buy before tariffs hit,” Mark Schirmer, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, told Al Jazeera.

This will only get harder for carmakers, dealerships and shoppers down the road.

“Price rises together with demand destruction,” Sina Golara, assistant professor of supply chain management at Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business, told Al Jazeera. “If consumers don’t h

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