The year’s gotten off to a bad start for Buick, the automaker’s U.S. sales down by roughly a third during the first quarter. Put the blame on the Trump auto import tariffs which have crippled sales of one of the brand’s most important products. Headlight.News has more.
When General Motors emerged from bankruptcy back in 2009 it shrank its U.S. brand count down to four. Many observers were surprised that it retained long-struggling Buick, rather than the more popular Pontiac – or Hummer, Saturn or Saab, for that matter.
The reason was simple, GM officials explained, noting how Buick had become one of the best-selling marques in the fast-growing Chinese market. Today, however, Buick’s ties to China have become something of an albatross around its corporate neck due to the Trump administration’s hefty auto import tariffs. Chinese-made EVs face 100% import duties while models using conventional powertrains – such as the Buick Envision – are saddled with 45% tariffs.
That led to a 71% plunge in first-quarter sales for the mid-range CUV, on top of more modest reductions in demand for Buick’s three other model lines. More modest tariffs on two South Korean models further dragged down first-quarter demand.
A miserable quarter
The 2026 Buick Envison Avenir’s price jumped $5,000 over the last year, at least partly due to the Trump tariffs on imported autos.
Overall, Buick sales tumbled 32.6% between January 1 and March 31, 2026, the worst decline by any major brand operating in the U.S. By comparison, parent GM was down 9.7%. The company’s other brands also had relatively modest declines: Chevrolet off 10.2%, Cadillac down 12.4% and GMC 3.8%.
The U.S. auto industry overall was down 6.3% for the quarter.
“Part of the problem is that people just don’t know what Buick is anymore,” said Sam Abuelsamid, chief analyst with Telemetry Research. “It doesn’t have much of a presence, even though its products are pretty good looking.”
It doesn’t help that “Buick has pigeonholed itself as a crossover brand,” added Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. And, with only four models in its line-up, there’s quite a spread between product lines from the base Encore GX which starts at $27,295 – including delivery fees – up to a well-equipped Enclave Avenir pushing near $70,000.
Tariffs drag Buick down
The Buick Envista.
But the biggest challenge, at least for now, is the auto import tariff program launched by Pres. Donald Trump in April 2025.
That’s devastated demand for the Envision, Buick’s mid-range model, as the heftiest tariffs currently put in place by the White House target Chinese-made vehicles like Envision. The 2026 model now starts at $42,995, a roughly $3,000 year-over-year increase.
That actually accounts for only a fraction of the hit from a 45% tariff. Parent GM has chosen to largely absorb such duties to minimize the hit to buyers. Instead, Buick has slashed back on the number of Envisions it has been importing from China. The result: U.S. sold 15,485 during Q1 2025, but just 4,485 during the same period this year, a spectacular, 71% plunge.
Of the other three Buick models available in the U.S., both the Encore GX and Envista are imported from South Korea and face 15% tariffs. Their sales were off 36% and 9.7%, respectively, for the quarter.
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Changing plans
The Buick Enclave is the brand’s only U.S.-made model.
Demand for the Enclave, Buick’s only U.S.-made model, fell a modest 3% during Q1, a figure less than half of the overall American market downturn.
Looking to the future, we can expect to see more Buick products start rolling out of domestic plants, noted Abuelsamid. Envision has been produced in China since 2017 but the next-generation CUV will be assembled alongside the compact Chevrolet Equinox at a GM plant in Fairfax, Kansas starting in 2028. (Equinox, in turn, is being relocated from GM’s plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.)
If there’s any good news for Buick it’s the fact that Trump reduced tariffs on Korean autos from 25% to 15% after the two countries reached a trade deal. For now, Encore GX and Envista production will remain in that country.
New Buick sedan
A new GM sedan platform will be used to replace the current Cadillac CT5 – shown here – but will also be used for new Buick and Chevy sedans.
GM, meanwhile, has put plans in place to expand its marginal presence in the U.S. sedan market. As Headlight.News yesterday reported, it’s working up a new version of the Cadillac CT5 with its underlying platform set to be shared with a revived Chevrolet Camaro. A new Buick sedan also is in the works, according to several sources.
Sedans once dominated the American market but currently represent less than 12% of domestic new vehicle sales, according to S&P Global Mobility. But some research suggests today’s youngest buyers are beginning to be drawn to sedans as a way to differentiate themselves from what their parents drove.
That could to Buick’s benefit if it could come up with a sedan delivering better fuel economy than its crossover family, said Abuelsamid. Unfortunately for the brand its parent, GM currently doesn’t offer any mainstream hybrid drivetrain in the U.S., unlike rivals like Toyota, Honda, Kia and Hyundai. (GM’s only U.S. hybrids are performance-focused packages used in three Corvette variants.)
Ironically, GM does offer hybrids in China which means that even as it shifts production back to the U.S. Buick may still wind up being dependent on that Asian nation for its future.
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