United States's Car companies Weigh Response to Chinese New Tariffs

Himanshu Patel, an analyst with the financial-services company JP Morgan, said the new tariff faced by GM - which is composed of an 8.9 percent anti-dumping duty and a 12.9 percent anti-subsidy duty - will not lower the company's profits in China by much.

Ford, for its part, imports only one automobile model to China and is not likely to notice a great effect. Chrysler, though, relies heavily on import sales.

"The tariff impacts Chrysler significantly since they import about 24,000 vehicles, and have no local partnerships after the separation from Daimler. This action will have a significant impact on pricing for models like the Wrangler and Grand Cherokee," Russo said.

Itay Michaeli, a New York-based analyst for Citigroup Inc, wrote in a note to clients that the German car maker BMW has the most "material exposure" to the tariff since it exports about 25,000 SUVs a year from the US to China.

On Monday, the Chinese branches of GM, Chrysler and Daimler AG all said they have not decided how the tariffs will affect their vehicles' prices.

A salesman at Da Shi Hang Auto Co, Cadillac's dealership in Beijing, said the prices of affected Cadillac models will remain unchanged in the short term.

The dealer, who declined to give his full name, said the tariff's consequences may not become noticeable until after the Spring Festival, when dealers begin to sell out of the imported models they had in stock before the policy change.

A dealer who sells Chrysler's Jeep brand and declined to provide his name said that the US automaker's SUVs have been quite popular recently, forcing Jeep lovers to stand in line or pay extra money to get them.

"The extra tax - which amounts to several tens of thousands of yuan - won't change these potential customers' shopping list, since they are not as affected by prices as are sedan buyers," the dealer said.

In response to the new tariffs, carmakers can either pass on their higher costs to consumers or try to absorb them themselves. Doing the latter will affect their profits, Russo said.