White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has accused South Korea and other major auto exporters of weakening the U.S. auto industry. 

Navarro, the White House counselor for trade and manufacturing, made the comments Sunday in an interview with Fox News while defending his country’s tariffs on automobiles. 

Navarro said South Korea, Germany and Japan are turning the U.S. from a manufacturing nation into an assembly nation.

He continued that Germany and Japan send the U.S. their high-value, high-wage components to assemble and that only 19 percent of the cars sold in the U.S. annually have American-made engines and transmissions. 

Navarro’s remarks are seen as criticism that although other countries may establish factories in the U.S. to produce so-called American-made cars, key components such as engines and transmissions are manufactured elsewhere.