{"id":361174,"date":"2026-09-30T21:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T21:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/361174\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T21:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T21:38:10","slug":"trump-tariffs-will-add-1-billion-to-cost-of-new-nyc-subways-trains-and-buses-mta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/361174\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump tariffs will add $1 billion to cost of new NYC subways, trains and buses: MTA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration\u2019s controversial tariffs<\/a>\u00a0on imported goods will add $1 billion to the cost of modernizing the MTA\u2019s bus and rail fleet<\/a>, according to an estimate by the transit agency shared Wednesday \u2014 and Gov. Hochul has written to Washington asking for an exemption.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s \u201chigh and unpredictable tariff rates\u201d on specialized components that have to be imported to the U.S. have driven up the cost of building a subway car by 27.9% since August 2025, according to Jesse Lazarus, head of the MTA\u2019s rolling stock program.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll-in, we are forecasting tariffs alone will increase costs for trains and buses by $1 billion into 2030,\u201d the transit agency\u2019s car-czar said Wednesday. \u201cThat\u2019s a billion dollars to pay the federal government, not the American workers making our trains and buses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the components required to make a subway car are so specialized, we cannot avoid importing them \u2014 we need to source them from very specific places,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Prior to the Trump tariffs, the government already required any federally funded purchases of train cars or buses to be made in the United States, and 70% of their components must be sourced from the U.S.<\/p>\n

And while the newest generation of subway cars on the lettered lines \u2014 the R211 built by Kawasaki in Lincoln, Nebraska<\/a> \u2014 exceeds that requirement for American parts, the tariffs still end up adding significant cost, Lazarus said in a presentation to the MTA\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

\"Gov.Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at the governor\u2019s Manhattan office on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2026 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Some of a train car\u2019s high-carbon steels and wheel parts come from Japan, said Lazarus. Specialized fan motors and compressors are made in Italy. Critical components in a subway\u2019s traction-power control circuits are sourced from Taiwan.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s tariffs on American-made rolling stock are diluting the American tax-payer\u2019s investment by punishing manufacturers for sourcing components they cannot buy anywhere else,\u201d Lazarus said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, tariffs are not an entirely new thing, but it\u2019s the nature of today\u2019s tariffs that present an unprecedented challenge to the MTA\u2019s rolling stock [program],\u201d she said. \u201cIf it is not contained, it will force us to make difficult decisions about upcoming investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the next four years, the MTA plans to replace the aging M3 cars on the Long Island Rail Road, purchase a fleet of new buses, and develop a new class of subway car<\/a> to replace the aging R62s that operate on the system\u2019s numbered lines \u2014 part of a $23 billion program to upgrade rolling stock at NYC Transit and the commuter railways.<\/p>\n

Any of those efforts could be impacted by the tariff price hike, Lazarus said.<\/p>\n

\"MTAMTA New York City Transit accepts delivery of Kawasaki R211 cars 3962, 3963, and 3964, the 998th, 999th, and 1000th in their class, respectively, at the Railcar Acceptance and Testing Facility on Wednesday, Sep 30, 2026. (Marc A. Hermann \/ MTA)<\/p>\n

Presently, the MTA is offering to take on 90% of the tariff risk in upcoming contracts, on the assumption that the ultimate cost to the agency will be lower than if a manufacturer were to assume the total tariff on its own.<\/p>\n

But in the longer term, officials said Wednesday, the MTA hopes to secure an exception to the tariffs for goods going into American-made train cars and buses that are funded by taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent Wednesday to Trump\u2019s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, Gov. Hochul called the tariffs a \u201ctax on transit,\u201d and pushed for an exemption.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigher tariffs on rolling stock will not result in a railcar manufacturing boom,\u201d Hochul wrote. \u201c[I]t will only raise costs for transit agencies at a time when other construction costs are skyrocketing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration\u2019s controversial tariffs\u00a0on imported goods will add $1 billion to the cost of modernizing the MTA\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[85,267,9,24,55,54,264,10,12,56,608],"class_list":["post-361174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}