AUTOS

Court Upholds Lower Tariff for Nissan Vehicle: The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found the federal government had wrongly imposed a 25% tariff on an imported two-door sport utility vehicle made by Nissan. The ruling is likely to end an acrimonious dispute in which the government sought to classify Nissan’s two-door Pathfinder as a cargo vehicle subject to the 25% truck tariff instead of a passenger car subject to a 2.5% tariff. The decision is a blow to the Big Three auto makers, which had urged the Clinton Administration to impose the higher tariff on two-door utility vehicles and to extend it to four-door utility models and minivans. Nissan sold about 15,000 two-door Pathfinders from 1989 to 1991 in the United States but stopped after the Customs Service imposed the higher tariff.