Company's First Reaction To Trump Tariffs: Lay Off 900 Employees In The U.S.

Stellantis announced on Thursday that it is pausing production at its plants in Mexico and Canada, and temporarily laying off 900 workers in the U.S., as a result of President Donald Trump's tariffs on the auto industry.

The pause will last two weeks at the Canada plant and all of April in Mexico. 4,500 workers are set to be impacted in Canada, a company spokeswoman said. Workers in Mexico will report to the factory but won't produce vehicles.

"We are continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects of these tariffs on our operations, but also have decided to take some immediate actions, including temporarily pausing production at some of our Canadian and Mexican assembly plants," said the company's North American chief Antonio Filosa.

The announcement came shortly after U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said positive effects of the tariffs will begin showing right away.

Asked point blank in CBS News how long people would have to wait to see the benefits of the policy, Lutnick said "you started hearing recently we have $5 trillion in committed investment."

"People are going to start building factories right now. All that construction begins now. That starts to employ Americans today. You'll see plants being built, factories rebuilding. All shifts running hot across America now. You'll see employment leaping starting today," Lutnick added.

However, markets in the U.S. had their worst daily drop since the beginning of the pandemic, with the S&P 500 falling by 4.8% and the Nasdaq 100 plummeting 6%.

Trump, on his end, said that the U.S. is "going to boom." "The thing that people have to talk about, we have almost a $7 trillion investment coming into our country, and you'll see how things turn out," he said at the White House South Lawn.