Regardless of what it was used for, the big three auto makers now get the bulk of their profits from pickups and SUVs. Drop the tariff on those and they are not going to be happy.
The big 3 might actually be forced to start building compact pickups again, rather than forcing everyone who needs a light duty pickup truck occasionally into a $45,000+ over-optioned monster.
To be fair, the emissions regulations don’t make compact pickups easy to build. Hopefully the automakers will point this out and the Trump Administration will fix, or better, elminate the standards.