US President Donald Trump has leveled what could be his most devastating prices to date, hitting a large part of North American cross-border car trade and potentially all this on a later date.
A new law of 25% will strike all finished vehicles imported into the United States from April 3, then certain parts later and potentially all the parts.
This is a frightening perspective for hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose jobs are linked to the automotive sector – the largest manufacturing industry in Canada and the second source of export to the United States after oil.
It is a pot-haul complicated by penalties, with a clear objective, and the president was frank on this subject by making the announcement of the oval office.
“All we do is say that you can’t come unless you build here,” said Trump on Wednesday.
Cars exported to the United States under the Canada’s (CUSMA) agreement (CUSMA) could still be struck by rates on their non-American components, while waiting for an exam, according to the executive decree.
Automobiles are by far the most lucrative produced product that Canada sells in the world. This makes these prices potentially larger than all other Trump’s trade threats, including 10% levy on energy and 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Federal leaders are expressed against prices
The news quickly reverberated in Canada during the campaign husts.
Liberal chief Mark Carney said he would return to Ottawa and, as Prime Minister, convene his meeting on the Canada-US cabinet committee on Thursday.
He suggested that reprisal measures could follow, and has smoked Trump’s actions as an abdication of the agreement on continental trade.
Liberal chief Mark Carney waged his campaign in Windsor on Wednesday, praising a 2 billion dollars proposal to protect Canada’s automotive industry. Reports by Pratyush Dayal.
“This is a violation and has betrayed our trade agreement,” said Carney. “An answer will occur soon. I will say no more. Regarding our options, we have options.”
Earlier Wednesday, Carney promised a package of $ 2 billion to protect Canada’s automotive industry.
Conservative chief Pierre Hairy said that Trump should “drop him” with his trade war.
“We had the best trade relations in the world, in the history of the world, before these unnecessary interruptions hit our economy, and they hurt the two sides of the border,” he told journalists on Wednesday evening.
Conservative chief Pierre Hairy denounced the prices brought by US President Donald Trump as “unjustified and uninsured”, and promised that Canada will protect the car workers they harm. “Canada will be there for you. We will be there for you, ”he said.
Hairyre blamed liberal “weakness” for Canada’s position and said the country should diversify its business markets and reduce taxes to help workers and businesses.
NPD chief Jagmeet Singh said that Trump’s last action was a “complete frontal attack on car workers”.
“There are currently hundreds and thousands of workers who wonder if their line will stop and if they will lose their jobs … We have to retaliate as hell,” he said.
Singh called for prices and support for workers, and said that Carney should have reminded parliament to adopt legislation to support workers before calling on the elections.
Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford said Canada will have to fight new prices – and have called for reprisal rates that “maximize the pain for the Americans”.
“I feel terrible for the Americans, but it is a person, it is President Trump who creates this chaos,” he told journalists at Queen’s Park. “We are not going to ride. We are going to do everything we can.”
How do 25% American automobile prices have an impact on the federal electoral campaign in some of the regions most exposed to Ontario trade? Two Ontario observers weigh on the way it could take place in the campaign: the head of the Toronto star’s park office, Rob Benzie and founder of The Queen’s Park Observer, Sabrina Nanji.
An analyst deplored that it is a departure of 60 years of tradition, starting with the 1965 automotive pact which led to free trade in Canada-US. In addition, this makes fun of the agreement that Trump himself signed, Cusma, which was to allow a stable and predictable trade.
“The Americans have lost their credibility in terms of reliable trading partner,” said Fraser Johnson, an expert in car supply chains at the Western University Business School in London, Ontario.
He said Trump’s initial decision would not fully block the industry. To start, almost three -quarters of Canada automobile jobs involve parts, not finished vehicles. But the vast majority of these finished vehicles are exported to the United States
The prices will make real damage, said Johnson, with few advantages for the United States, because it takes years to build new assembly factories, which means that new supply lines will not appear as if by magic in the United States during the night.
“This is not good news for anyone,” he said. “I don’t really see how it helps the North American automotive industry-certainly in Canada but also in the United States”
Flavio Volpe, president of the Association of Automobile Parts manufacturers, said that he was creating paralyzing uncertainty for industry – and not only in Canada.
The constant and still evolving tariff threat also frightens investors in the United States, he told CBC News.
“”[Trump] Move the sticks twice a day, “he said on Wednesday waiting for the announcement.” You don’t know what to expect when you get up in the morning. “”
Speaking before the announcement, Volpe properly predicted the price of 25%, but with some exemptions, perhaps on North American documents negotiated according to the CUSMA rules, the agreement that Trump himself has concluded.
Canada is, in fact, a rare trading partner for the United States
Unlike the rest of the world, it actually buys more cars and parts from the United States it does not sell. The first Trump administration produced a report on automotive prices and barely mentions Canada. He showed that Canada in North American car production has been relatively stable since the 1980s and that real change has gone from American production to Mexico.
But this second Trump administration more aggressively adopts trade protectionism, and the threat of the latter, in the hope of directing production in the United States
