Trump and Tariffs Enter the Scene Only Days Into Canada’s Election Campaign

Last Wednesday, the election campaign of Prime Minister Mark Carney had brought him to the bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, on which $ 300 million cars are traveled to cross every day.

He revealed a series of promises of programs for workers and self-lined industries that would have been launched if President Trump imposed rates on the products of the Canadian automotive industry. Among these there was a proposed fund of 2 billion Canadian dollars to reshape the industry for a future without the US market.

The stakes are high. Cars and cars are the second largest export of the country by value and an employer, directly and indirectly, of about 500,000 people, who represent 10 percent of the production of gross internal products.

But what Mr. Carney, nor anyone else in the Canadian government, knew at that time was that a few hours after the program, something would no longer be for an emergency situation.

Trump, without first informing Canada, announced that he was imposing 25 % rates in force since April 2nd on all imports of cars and cars, without exemption for Canada.

[Read: Trump Announces 25% Tariffs on Imported Cars and Car Parts]

[Read: With Car Tariffs, Trump Puts His Unorthodox Trade Theory to the Test]

[Read: Trump’s Punishing Tariffs Stun America’s Automaker Allies]

“This is a direct attack,” Cariy said to journalists in another stage of the countryside after the president’s announcement, adding that because of the rates, the links between Canada and the United States “are about to be broken”.

Carney then suspended a campaign to return to Ottawa for a cabinet meeting the next morning.

How to deal with Mr. Trump and his commercial agenda were obviously at the top of the list of issues when the election campaign started on Sunday.

Here’s how the three main national parties promise to face the future of the automotive industry:

Liberals: Carryy said that her fund will “build an all-in-canad car production network”. He added: “On average, the car parts cross the border six times before the final assembly. In a commercial war, this is a huge vulnerability.”

Conservatives: Pierre Poilievre, the conservative leader, did not offer directly a plan for the automotive sector, but renewed his request for the end of the carbon tax for industries and the expansion of the energy sectors and the natural resources of Canada to revitalize the economy. “We have to become more self -sufficient and have new and different markets,” he said this week.

New Democrats: Jagmeet Singh, the party leader, appeared to Windsor, in his hometown, the day after Mr. Carley. He said that if the automotive companies based in the United States wanted to continue selling in Canada, he would have asked them to make vehicles in Canada or buy Canadian parts. He also said he would use the past government subsidies to block the removal of any machine or tools in the United States. “Those machines, those tools, that equipment: the Canadians paid for them,” he said. “They belong to us.”

For a general evaluation of the future of the sector, I spoke to Greig Mordue, former general manager of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada. Mordue is now professor of engineering at the McMaster University of Hamilton and his doctoral thesis was partly a car story in Canada.

He said that the idea of ​​an automotive industry for all Canadian had sprung every time since a government investigation in 1960 promoted something that suggested that he was called the beaver.

It does not seem that any party is going so far, which could be just as well. Mordue said that “there is really not really volume to make a canadese car company practicable, profitable and sustainable”.

But he said that if Mr. Trump has implemented his car rates next week and if they had been supported, the result could be the opposite of what Mr. Carley hopes for part producers.

“The industry industry in Canada will be devastated and will be devastated quite quickly,” he said.

Party manufacturers face two problems. The profit margin on the parties is a fraction of the tariff rate of 25 %, so their operations will become deeply unsustainable financially.

At the same time, Mr. Mordue does not expect the car manufacturers to immediately move away from their assembly plants from billions of dollars and their qualified and trained employees. Instead, he said, it is likely that you try to buy as many parties as possible from the United States as a tariff solution. The Trump administration has indicated that the rates on cars assembled outside the United States will be reduced according to their American content.

But even if the plants of the assembly remain open for now, Mordue sees a dense future for industry, American rates should be put in place and persist.

“If this passes, nothing good happens for the Canadian car industry,” he said. “They will climb and find alternative solutions. But those solutions will ultimately alternate only the possible automotive production enthusiast.”

At the end of the week, Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump had their first telephone conversation. The president dropped his rhetoric to make Canada the 51st state and the two leaders described their speeches in positive tones. But Mr. Trump later said that his rates against Canada were “absolutely” coming on April 2nd.

[Read: Trump Tones Down His Rhetoric About Canada After Call With Its Leader]

Trans Canada

• After 142 years in operation, the only rice field of Canada finds himself squeezed on both sides In the commercial war between Canada and the United States. His future is now in danger.

• Canadian airlines are eliminating tens of thousands of places on flights to the United States This April while the Canadian boycott of all that American grows, Vjosa Isai and Christine Chung report.

• The agents of the Indian government collected money and contributed to organizing support in 2022 for Pierre Poilievre’s success of success For conservative leadership, according to news, citing intelligence officials.

• Four Tesla dealers owned by the company said in the government’s documents that they had sold surprising 8,653 cars in three days. Now, among the questions about the validity of the complaints, Transport Canada has frozen the 43 million Canadian dollars in discounts they are supporting.

• In an essay guest for opinion, the author Glynnis Macnicol writes it “It was decidedly exasperating Seeing some Americans who contemplate how Canada becomes the 51st state could be a good thing … for American democrats “.

• If the skies are clear, some Canadians will see the most pronounced effect of A partial eclipse on Saturday.

Ian Austen Reports on Canada for the Times based in Ottawa. He covers politics, culture and people of Canada and reported on the country for two decades. Can be reached a Austen@nytimes.com. More information about Ian Austen

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