Nissan Americas chair Christian Meunier told attendees at the New York International Auto Show that Nissan is “back” in the United States, pointing to a string of new models and a deliberate shift toward US manufacturing as the engines of the recovery. Standing beside the US‑built Frontier pickup, Meunier said Nissan has been the fastest‑growing auto brand in the US for the past six months and is targeting 10% US sales growth in 2026, with a stretch goal of reaching 1 million annual US sales by 2027 — the company’s strongest performance since before the pandemic.
Meunier credited recent launches for the turnaround, naming the redesigned Leaf, Sentra and Armada, and the newly revealed Infiniti QX65 as contributors to renewed momentum. “In the last few months, we’ve had some pretty good success regrowing the business again,” he told Yahoo Finance, adding that rediscovering scale is key to getting costs down and prices into an affordable range for buyers. The renewed focus on US production has also attracted political attention: Meunier noted that former President Donald Trump praised Nissan’s US manufacturing expansion on Truth Social.
Nissan operates three US facilities — two in Tennessee, including a powertrain operation, and a manufacturing plant in Mississippi — and Meunier said the company has rapidly increased the share of US‑made vehicles it sells domestically. That share has climbed from roughly 45% when tariffs took effect to 60–65% today, and Nissan is aiming for 80% US‑made content over time. “The tariff was not a bad thing for us because it forced us to really accelerate our plan,” Meunier said. “We need to build where we sell. There’s no magic.”
But the tariff landscape complicates Nissan’s strategy for its entry‑level models. Affordable staples such as the Sentra and Kicks are built in Mexico, where lower labor costs make their price points possible. Meunier said tariffs — which he estimated add $2,500 to $3,000 per vehicle — threaten those price‑sensitive models and that Nissan is pressing Washington for relief ahead of a mandatory review of the US‑Mexico‑Canada Agreement in July. “We need the affordable cars, the entry sedan and entry SUVs made in Mexico,” he said, arguing that many components and engineering work originate in the United States and that keeping prices accessible benefits American consumers.
Nissan’s comeback follows a difficult stretch for the automaker. The company trimmed output and sold off production capacity as it right‑sized the business, and previous product cycles left the brand lagging. Competition from Chinese automakers abroad and a failed merger with Honda also dented profitability in recent years. Meunier’s comments at the auto show framed the current strategy as one of rebuilding scale through refreshed products and more US production while maintaining a role for Mexico‑built, low‑cost models.
Looking ahead, Nissan plans to ride the momentum of its latest model launches and the manufacturing pivot to meet its 2026 and 2027 sales targets. Whether the company can sustain rapid growth will hinge on balancing increased US production with preserving the cost structure that keeps entry‑level vehicles affordable — a balance Meunier says requires both industrial shifts and changes in trade policy.