The German carmaker reported on Friday that net profits had collapsed by more than a third last year, and warned that 2025 is likely to be challenging thanks to the ongoing tariff face-off between the US, China, and Europe.
BMW stock fell as much as 4.5% on Friday. As with many of its European rivals, the main source of the automaker's woes is China.
Despite BMW Group's sales rising slightly in the US and Europe, they collapsed 13.4% in the world's largest car market last year.
BMW CEO Oliver Zipse told Bloomberg the automaker expects trade conflicts between the US, China, and Europe to cost it about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) this year.
However, he expects much of the disruption to be short-lived. "We don't think that all these tariffs will last very long, though some of them might last longer," Zipse said.
Other European automakers are also sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump's tariff barrage. The boss of VW brand Skoda warned on Friday that US tariffs would raise costs, and could push Chinese carmakers to accelerate their expansion into Europe.
BMW did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The number of Canadians traveling to the US looks set to fall in 2025 after boycott calls from Justin Trudeau.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Canadians taking road trips to the US dropped by 23% last month, per Statistics Canada.
Outgoing PM Justin Trudeau urged Canadians to take domestic vacations instead of visiting the US.
A business owner told BI he fears Trump's tariffs may cause him to lose Canadian clients.
Canadians are pulling back on travel to the US amid a scrap between the two nations over tariffs first imposed by President Donald Trump.
According to Statistics Canada data released Monday, the number of Canadians driving to the US fell 23% in February compared to the same month last year, marking the second consecutive monthly decline and the second decline observed since March 2021.
Leisure bookings are also taking a hit. Flight Centre Travel Group, a major travel agency in Canada, told Business Insider that they saw a 40% decrease in leisure bookings to the US in February year over year.
"While Canadians remain eager to travel, they are increasingly shifting their focus to destinations outside the US,"Amra Durakovic, spokesperson for Flight Centre Travel Group Canada, told Business Insider.
The downturn follows a call from outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who is set to be replaced by Mark Carney on Friday — for Canadian citizens to reconsider visiting the US and instead support domestic tourism.
His comments came in response to Trump issuing executive orders on February 1 to levy 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.
One online survey suggested that Trudeau's message was resonating. A Leger survey of around 1,500 Canadians found that nearly half said they were less likely to visit the US this year compared to last year, while six in 10 planned to vacation in Canada instead.
"The drop in Canadian visits is closely linked to the US tariffs imposed on February 1," Rachel J.C. Fu, director of the University of Florida'sEric Friedheim Tourism Institute, told BI.
"The 25% tariffs likely increased economic tension between the two countries, influencing Canadian consumer sentiment and travel choices," she said, adding that Trudeau's comments further discouraged travel to the US.
Economic fallout for the US
A drop in Canadian visitors could come at a cost to the US economy.
Last month, the US Travel Association estimated that a 10% decrease in Canadian travel could result in $2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses, with Florida, California, Nevada, New York, and Texas — Canadian tourists' top US destinations — most affected.
While the US travel and tourism industry is projected to generate $223.64 billion in 2025, losses could exceed current estimates if tensions persist, Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, told BI.
"Canada is the US top visitor market, so the stakes are high," he added.
Tony Poletti, owner of the family-runMarketside Restaurant in Niagara Falls, NY — which sits on the border with Canada — told BI: "It's just a matter of time before we feel the impact of it."
"It's going to have a bigger impact on businesses in Niagara County than people could imagine," he added.
Poletti, whose family has run the restaurant since 1939, said his "very dedicated" Canadian customer base has already expressed reluctance to travel to the US.
One longtime Canadian client told him her husband refused to let her visit because he was "very upset" by Trump's tariffs.
"What Washington is doing is they're cutting off their nose to spite their face," he said, adding: "It's not going to be long before it's going to hurt Americans."
Market jitters and long-term risks
Economic uncertainty has already rattled financial markets this week.
Wall Street plunged on Monday after Trump refused to rule out a recession, saying the US is in "a period of transition" in a Sunday interview on Fox News.
Stocks slid again Tuesday after Trump wrote on Truth Social that he instructed his commerce secretary to place an additional 25% tariff on steel and aluminum coming from Canada into the US, bringing the tariff rate on those imports to 50%.
He later backtracked, with his trade advisor, Peter Navarro, telling CNBC on Tuesday afternoon that the 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would no longer go into effect on Wednesday.
Fu said that if the tariffs remain in place and continue to strain economic relations, the Canadian travel slump "could last for months or even two more years. "
"Unless the trade dispute is resolved or new incentives encourage Canadian travelers to return, the US tourism industry may need to prepare for a prolonged downturn in Canadian visitors," she added.
Hamas said on Friday it agreed to release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander and return the bodies of four other American-Israeli hostages.
Why it matters: Hamas' statement didn't make clear what the group demands in return for releasing the five remaining American hostages.
Hamas would likely demand Israel release Palestinian prisoners and extend the Gaza ceasefire.
What they are saying: Hamas said in its statement that it met on Thursday with the Qatari and Egyptian mediators and received a proposal for extending the Gaza ceasefire.
"We handled this proposal with responsibility and a positive approach and responded on Friday. We are ready to start negotiations on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and we call for pressing Israel to implement its commitments," Hamas said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates
Anti-fire tricks include trimming low-hanging branches, installing double-pane windows, and cleaning gutters.
The Getty Villa is one of the most luxurious properties in the Pacific Palisades.
It's a sprawling estate and museum featuring a replica of an ancient Roman villa that was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
Now it's one of the sole surviving properties in its neighborhood after the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history, the Palisades fire, tore through in January.
Since then, wildfires also have ripped through South Carolina and Long Island. It's as good a time as ever to brush up on protecting your home, and the Getty's survival offers a few lessons.
The villa is owned by the J. Paul Getty Trust, which has the largest museum endowment in the world at more than $8 billion in 2023. Needless to say, it has more resources than the typical homeowner.
Still, the anti-fire measures at the Getty follow basic principles that people can apply in their own homes: fire-resistant construction and defensible space.
First thing's first: The Getty Villa is made of concrete and travertine.
This Roman-style construction is not very flammable.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Those materials are virtually fire-proof. Essentially, the villa was "built like a vault," Les Borsay, the facility's emergency preparedness specialist, told Business Insider.
Of course, most homes aren't pure concrete, but consider it when you're building a driveway or fence.
Imagine if there was a wood fence separating these two houses, pictured during the Palisades fire.
AP Photo/Etienne Laurent
In urban conflagrations like the ones that ripped through Los Angeles in January, a wood fence or mulch landscaping can be the fuel that brings the fire to your house.
A fire-resistant roof can make a huge difference too, since embers accumulate there.
Tile roofing, shown here at a model home by architect Clark Stevens, is a safe choice.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
At the Getty Villa, roofs are made of tile. Wood shake or shingles, of course, are the most flammable roofing material. An ideal fire-resistant roof is made of asphalt, clay tiles, or concrete tiles, according to the California state fire agency, Cal Fire.
Then there are the openings into a home: windows, doors, and vents.
Robust doors help prevent fire and embers from getting inside the villa.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
If enough embers get in through openings, or if a window breaks from the heat, fire can easily start inside the home.
That's why double-pane windows are the choice of fire-resistant construction experts like Clark Stevens, an architect working with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains.
The Getty Villa has fire-rated doors, but homeowners can up their anti-fire game by installing a good seal around their doors.
Stevens points out a garage door seal that can block embers from sneaking in around the edges.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Don't forget the garage door, too.
"It's bigger than any window in your house, usually, so these edges are really important," Stevens told BI as he showed off the garage-door seal at a model home he's built in the Santa Monica mountains.
Since people often use garages as storage spaces, they're also often full of flammable items. They can be a huge vulnerability if they're not properly sealed.
Vents into the Getty Villa's buildings are fitted with mesh to prevent embers from flying in.
This building at the Getty Villa has a tile roof and attic vents fitted with mesh to block flying embers.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Installing metal mesh screening with 1/8-inch spacing — or, better yet, 1/16-inch — can prevent embers from accumulating inside an attic or crawlspace and starting a fire inside your home.
The Getty Villa has a fancy water-supply system that's not a realistic option for most homeowners.
This riser helps push water from the underground reservoir to the villa's sprinkler system.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
It involves a 50,000-gallon tank of water deep underground, a system of pipes and fire hydrants, and sprinklers throughout all the buildings on the property.
However, simple, cheap measures also helped save the villa, like trimming low-hanging tree branches.
The fire burned all the way up to this concrete wall lining a pathway into the villa property.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
According to Borsay, the groundskeeping team regularly cleared tree branches up to six feet above the ground.
On the hillside where fire traveled down toward the villa, in this photo, you can see where flames burned up the trunks of trees, but not into their leafy crowns. That helps prevent fire from jumping tree to tree, spreading more quickly.
"Nine out of 10 times, this boils down to two words: yard work," Pat Durland, an instructor for the National Fire Protection Association, told BI in 2023.
Yard vegetation burns outside a house in the Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire spreads.
David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images
Flying embers can ignite plants or leaves in the yard or a roof gutter, which can then ignite your home. That's where defensible space comes in.
Experts recommend maintaining a five-foot zone around your house that's free of dry vegetation or other highly flammable materials.
This lone surviving house in Lahaina had a vegetation-free radius protecting it from the fire that burned down the town.
Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
The forest "may be showering us with embers, but what's burning our homes down and forcing us to run and evacuate is human fuels," Durland, who has 30 years of federal wildfire management experience, told BI after the Palisades fire.
"It's bark mulch, it's ornamental grasses. It's structures that are readily flammable" — all things humans can change.
That applies to other fuel sources, too, like cars.
A burned car in a neighborhood ravaged by the Palisades Fire.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
A vehicle that goes up in flames can quickly ignite nearby structures, such as a car in a driveway helping fire spread to a house's outer wall.
Cal Fire recommends keeping vehicles at least five feet away from the house.
At the Getty, staff simply didn't want their cars to burn, so they moved them into the underground parking garage.
The Getty Villa has lots of vegetation, but staff keep the gardens well-watered and spaced apart, at a distance from the building itself.
Borsay walks through the lush, unburnt gardens of the Getty Villa.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen
After the five-foot no-fuel zone, Cal Fire recommends homeowners maintain a 30-foot "lean, clean, and green" zone.
"You are where the rubber meets the road. The things you do on your house and around your house are going to make the difference," Durland said.
Buildings and trees near the Getty Villa went up in flames.
David Swanson / Contributor / Getty Images
That's certainly on display at the Getty Villa. It's still standing after the most destructive fire in the region's history because of its builders' construction choices and diligent groundskeeping.
"Many of them are going to go out of business," a clean-energy entrepreneur said of the companies that had been counting on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
