A senior Stellantis figure has gone on record with a blunt assessment of North American trade policy: Trevor Longley doubts the USMCA will return to zero tariffs, according to remarks reported by Automotive News.

That single sentence carries weight for every assembly plant Stellantis operates across Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Ontario, and for the tier-one and tier-two suppliers feeding those lines. If duty-free movement of vehicles and components across US, Mexican and Canadian borders is off the table, the cost base of every North American program the automaker builds shifts upward — and the plants that depend on cross-border parts flow feel it first.

Longley's skepticism lands at a moment when the USMCA itself is under review. The trade agreement, which replaced NAFTA, is due for its scheduled joint review in 2026, and the political environment surrounding it has hardened. Automakers have spent the years since the agreement took effect in 2020 retooling supply chains to comply with its stricter rules of origin, which require higher North American content and higher wage thresholds for qualifying parts than the old NAFTA regime.

Stellantis has particular exposure. The company builds high-volume trucks and SUVs in the US, but sources engines, transmissions and countless components from Mexico and Canada. Tariffs on those flows, even partial ones, translate directly into per-unit cost on vehicles assembled in American plants. Suppliers two and three tiers down the chain absorb the same pressure when their own cross-border shipments stop qualifying for duty-free treatment.

One caveat belongs here. Longley's statement is an executive's judgment about a political outcome, not a policy decision. Nothing in his remarks, as reported, reflects a confirmed tariff schedule, a negotiated position among the three governments, or a filing with any trade authority. Trade-press practice is to treat such statements as claims to verify: the actual tariff rate on any given part depends on rules-of-origin calculations performed at the border, program by program, not on forecasts from OEM executives — however well-placed.

What gives the comment credibility is the direction it points. Automakers and suppliers have spent the past two years adjusting to a trading environment that no longer assumes frictionless North American commerce. Plant siting decisions, supplier localization programs and component-sourcing strategies across the industry already reflect a working assumption that some tariff exposure is permanent. Longley's doubt about zero tariffs aligns with how the industry is actually behaving, which is often the more reliable signal than what governments say.

For Stellantis plants specifically, the implication is continued pressure to localize. The plants best positioned under a tariffed USMCA are those with the deepest in-region supply base; the most exposed are those still drawing heavily on Mexican and Canadian content for US-assembled product.

What to watch next: the 2026 USMCA joint review, where the three governments must decide whether to extend, renegotiate or reopen the agreement. Any announcement on tariff rates or rules-of-origin changes will move sourcing decisions across Stellantis' North American footprint — and Longley's forecast will either look prescient or pessimistic within roughly 24 months.