General Motors has appointed veteran Duncan Aldred to run the company’s North American business operations. The British-born executive comes in at a critical time for the automaker which just warned expects to take as much as a $5 billion hit from Pres. Donald Trump’s auto tariffs. Headlight.News has more.
Duncan Aldred, GM’s new head of N. American operations, shown at the launch of the GMC Sierra HD.
Duncan Aldred, a 33-year General Motors veteran, has been named president of the automaker’s North American business operations.
Aldred had been serving as vice president of GM’s commercial growth strategies and operations segment. He previously had a dual role as VP overseeing both the GMC and Buick brands.
The British-born executive takes on his new assignment at a critical time for GM, the company last week forecasting its full-year 2025 earnings will drop as much as $5 billion below its prior guidance due to the impact of Pres. Donald Trump’s auto tariffs.
A GM insider
Duncan Aldred shown in front a display of a GM home energy system.
Born in 1970 in Bolton, the United Kingdom, Aldred first joined GM through its British Vauxhall subsidiary as an undergraduate co-op student at the Ellesmere Port plant in 1990. He officially joined the company in 1992 afte graduating from ther Liverpool Polytechnic with a BA in Business Studies.
Over the years, Aldred has held leadership positions with a number of GM brands, including Vauxhall and Opel – since sold off to what has become Stellantis. He was named head of both the Buick and GMC brands in 2014.
Aldred briefly held a role as head of commercial growth strategies and operations before the new assignment.
“Duncan comes to the role leading our North America business having driven a decade of growth in Buick and GMC, and most recently leading and modernizing our commercial operations to better serve our customers,” GM President of Markets Rory Harvey said in a statement announcing Aldred’s new assignment.
Tough road ahead
GM CEO Mary Barra expects the automaker to take as much as a $5 billion hit due to Trump tariffs.
The new job comes with some serious challenges.
The auto industry has been slowly emerging from the hit it took during the COVID pandemic, sales climbing to 16 million last year – still well behind the peak of 17.1 million sales in 2016. The general consensus was that demand would climb as high as 16.5 million for 2025. But that was before Pres. Donald Trump took office and announced sweeping new tariffs, including 25% duties on imported and auto parts.
Cox Automotive last week released a new forecast estimating sales now will come in closer to 15 million – and as low as 14 million should the Trump tariffs trigger a recession.
For its part, GM CEO Mary Barra last week warned that it could take as much as a $5 billion hit due to those tariffs with an annual adjusted core profit of somewhere between $10 billion and $12.5 billion. The previous, pre-tariff forecast was between $13.7 billion and $15.7 billion.
More GM News
- Tariffs Expected to Cost GM Up to $5 Billion
- Trump Gives Some Tariff Relief to Automakers
- GM Reports Q1 Earnings
Heavy dependence on imports
Only one of Buick’s products are assembled domestically. The rest, like this Encore GX, come from either China or South Korea.
A major problem for General Motors is its reliance on imported autos and auto parts. It produces the Chevrolet Silverado pickup – its best-selling model – at plants in Mexico and Canada, as well as the U.S.
All but one of the models sold by Aldred’s old Buick brand are imported, either from South Korea or China.
GM, meanwhile, has a high dependence upon imported parts and components, even with U.S.-made models.
Trying to address this problem – possibly by accelerating a shift to U.S. production – could be a critical task for Aldred in his new role.
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