January 13, 2025
SEOUL – Hyundai Motor has decided to donate $1 million to the upcoming inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump as it seeks to bolster ties with the incoming leader looking to impose tariffs and strengthen protectionism.
“Hyundai welcomes the opportunity to work with the new administration on policies that support American manufacturing, protect supply chains and spur innovation,” a Hyundai Motor spokesperson said Sunday.
The donation, which was made by Hyundai Motor America, marked the Korean automaker’s first for a US presidential inauguration.
President-elect Trump, who will take office on Jan. 20, has repeatedly vowed to slap tariffs of up to 20 percent on all goods imported to the US and remove tax credits on electric vehicles. For Hyundai Motor Company as well as its sister affiliate Kia under Hyundai Motor Group, Trump’s America-first and anti-EV stances could dampen the Korean automakers’ recent rise in the US market.
Hyundai Motor Company, including Kia and its premium brand Genesis, set a new annual record with 1,708,293 vehicles sold in the US last year, up 3.4 percent on year. It also maintained its ranking there as fourth-biggest automaker by sales behind General Motors, Toyota and Ford.
The three Korean automakers also sold a combined 112,566 EVs between January and November last year, up 19.3 percent on year, to claim approximately 10 percent of the American EV market and become the second largest EV seller behind Tesla.
Five Hyundai Motor EVs — the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9, Kia EV6 and EV9 and Genesis Electrified GV70 — qualified for US government subsidies for the first time as of Jan. 1, according to the US Department of Energy. Before this, Hyundai and Kia EVs could only receive the tax credits of up to $7,500 per vehicle through leases.
Though the financial support under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has only just become available for the Korean brands’ EVs, Trump has openly criticized the IRA and expressed his strong intention to wipe out the subsidies from day one.
“We are not the ones who set the policies,” Hyundai Motor Company CEO Jose Munoz told reporters at Hyundai Motorstudio Goyang in Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 6.
“So the policies are set by the politicians and then our job is to make the most out of any policy … Our company is prepared to really be able to accommodate whichever conditions we have in the market. We are cautiously optimistic.”
Hyundai operates a factory in Montgomery, Alabama, and has another newly-built EV-focused plant in Bryan County, Georgia, which is expected to hold a grand opening ceremony in the first quarter of this year. Kia runs a plant in West Point, Georgia.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Hyundai Motor is pushing for a top level meeting with Trump around his inauguration, but a source familiar with the matter said nothing has been confirmed regarding such a gathering.
The Korean automaker’s decision to contribute to Trump’s inaugural fund followed in the footsteps of other global auto brands chipping in to start on good terms with the re-elected US president. Last month, GM, Ford and Toyota said they will each donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration as the US and Japanese automakers aim to strategically increase their chances of surviving the incoming US leaders’ anti-EV and hefty tariff policies. GM and Ford said they will offer vehicles for the event as well.
According to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization tracking and publishing data on campaign finance and lobbying in the US, Hyundai and Kia together spent $2.51 million on lobbying in America in the first nine months of last year, a record for the two companies.