US Tire Imports 2025
From January to October 2025, the United States imported approximately 2,400.01 million tires, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%. By category, passenger car tire imports reached 145.42 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.4%; truck and bus tire imports reached 51.73 million, a year-on-year increase of 6%; aircraft tire imports reached 227,000, a year-on-year decrease of 8%; motorcycle tire imports reached 3.25 million, a year-on-year increase of 15%; and bicycle tire imports reached 5.41 million, a year-on-year decrease of 3%.
During the same period, the United States imported a total of 18.25 million tires from China, a year-on-year decrease of 13%. Passenger car tire imports were only 820,000, a significant decrease of 37%; and truck and bus tire imports were 1.13 million, a decrease of 12%. This apparent downward trend does not reflect a weakening competitiveness of China's tire industry, but rather reveals a profound transformation in the industry from relying on "low-cost manufacturing" to building a "global industrial layout."
Against the backdrop of increasing trade barriers and accelerated supply chain restructuring globally, Chinese tire companies are gradually moving away from a sole reliance on exports and continuously enhancing their position in the global value chain by combining overseas factory construction, technology export, and localized operations.
Southeast Asia has become the primary hub for Chinese tire companies' overseas expansion, forming large-scale production clusters that effectively help them circumvent trade barriers. Since launching its first round of overseas expansion in 2013, leading companies such as Sailun, Linglong, and Zhongce have established production bases in Thailand and Vietnam and achieved stable mass production.
By 2025, Cambodia has become a new investment hotspot, with the Cambodian bases of companies like General Tire and Wanli Tire successively commencing production, accounting for 38% of the total new overseas production capacity of Chinese tires that year. These overseas bases are not simply replicating domestic production capacity but are deeply integrated into key nodes of the regional supply chain.
For example, after the second phase of General Tire's project in Thailand went into operation, it began supplying SAIC MG's Thailand plant in batches, successfully transforming its locational advantages into market competitiveness.
Data shows that the proportion of truck and bus tires imported by the United States from Thailand and Vietnam rose from 8% in 2014 to 42% in 2022, a significant increase largely attributed to the strong support of overseas production capacity from Chinese tire companies.
In the European market, Chinese tire companies are transitioning from simply exporting products to exporting technical standards. In 2024, Linglong Tire's Serbian factory officially began mass production. This smart factory, integrating artificial intelligence and the industrial internet, has achieved full automation from raw materials to finished products, becoming a technological benchmark for Chinese tires in Europe.
In October 2025, Fengshen Tire obtained EU witnessed laboratory accreditation from TÜV SÜD, allowing its testing data to be directly used for EU type approval applications, significantly reducing product compliance costs and opening an efficient channel for overcoming European technical barriers. This deep technological development is not an isolated endeavor but relies on a collaborative system of "domestic R&D + overseas transformation."
For example, engineers at Sailun's Cambodian factory can connect in real-time with the domestic R&D center to optimize product formulas and ensure product quality is in line with international standards.
In emerging markets such as Africa and South America, the expansion of Chinese tire companies further demonstrates the depth of their globalization strategies. In 2025, companies like Sailun and Langma established operations in Egypt, leveraging the locational advantages of the Suez Canal Economic Zone to radiate into the European and African markets.
Yongsheng Rubber and Guizhou Tire entered Morocco, utilizing geographical advantages to expand into the European and American markets; and Linglong Tire invested 8.7 billion yuan in a production base in Brazil, filling the manufacturing gap for Chinese tire companies in South America. These deployments have transcended passively responding to trade barriers, transforming into proactive strategic choices for optimizing the global supply chain.
Through the "production-to-sales" model, companies effectively convert tariff costs into competitive advantages, with some overseas bases achieving export gross profit margins nearly 12 percentage points higher than domestic sales.
Structural changes in US import data indicate that the Chinese tire industry is gradually shedding its traditional label of "low-cost competition." With the continuous improvement of its global production network, Chinese tire companies are more actively integrating into the global industrial chain, driving the industry's upgrade from scale expansion to value creation through technology export and localized operations. This transformation not only reshapes the global competitiveness of the Chinese tire industry but also provides a valuable path for the globalization of Chinese manufacturing.
