A commercial war, two to go, perhaps more. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has delayed his tariffs against Canada after shaking the economy of markets, factories, borders.
But that was this week’s battle.
There is another next week when its steel and aluminum rates enter into force; Then, another three weeks after that, when Trump threatens other tariffs in a multitude of countries.
Private and public comments in the last days of the Trump team make fun of the idea that stopping the fentanil was the main reason for its rate policy.
The greatest risk for Canada is focusing now. And it is bad news if you are one of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians with a work connected to the automotive sector. Your goal can be you.
In a closed door conversation, Trump team members have been pressing car companies in recent days to compromise drastically their long -term footprints in Canada and Mexico in exchange for a relief of permanent rates, without success until now, according to three sources related to the industry, which spoke on the condition that they were not mentioned.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said Thursday that he is stopping his tariffs on some assets of Canada and Mexico that are under the Canadian-U-Mexico agreement until April 2.
The Trump team has been almost so far in public.
His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, requested his message to the fearful automotive companies of the tariffs that expire April, said: “Change production here.”
The Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in Fox News made the same point:
“Why are our Michigan? [auto] Jobos in Canada? “, Asked”.[Trump’s] I will say: ‘Return. Return back ‘.
Trump himself described the conversations he had had this week with the three major American cars manufacturers, saying that he had promised a brief respite of the previous fentanyl tariffs and called to allow them to plan.
But he warned that there would be no exemption from future tariffs.
“I told them: ‘That’s.
“I said … ‘Don’t return to me after April 2,” Trump said about car manufacturers. “‘I don’t want to know about you after April 2,’ ‘”
Most Canadian manufacturing vehicles are exported to the US, and Canada sells more vehicles than you buy. But the industry is not a unique sense street: Canada is the biggest car buyer made in the United States and cross -border pieces.
That will come later
Trump now threatens tariffs in two phases.
First, there is a 25 percent gravation next week in steel and aluminum, and the automotive industry will be studying small impression for exemptions, since these metals are their main components. Without exemptions, vehicles would face punishment price increases.
Then you are planning tariffs on countries around the world to punish the alleged unfair commercial practices, starting as soon as April 2. This is based on reports that ordered his team to prepare, that they expire on April 1.
Trump made clear on Thursday that he sees Canada as one of the main objectives. He is preparing for a blunt renegotiation of the Canada-Mexico Agreement. By law that must occur during the next decade, but now it is expected at an accelerated schedule.
Trump has complained of everything, from the Protected Dairy sector of Canada, to banking regulations, to the GST. Dairy appeared frequently in time and Telephone call Plaza de Blasfemias this week with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Will Trump go down again?
I swear that it was not scared this week by the river of Red Splashed on commercial screens, which represents losses in the stock market.
“I’m not even looking at the market,” Trump insisted.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who spoke in an advertisement for child care on Thursday in Ottawa, was asked to describe his recent call with the president of the United States, Donald Trump, about tariffs. Trudeau, who did not provide details, emphasized that the conversations are ongoing and reiterated that Canada is focusing on how to help people face while the encumbrances are in their place.
How can chaos look
The market, however, was looking at the economy. And is getting messy around. Customs runners had a unique point of view on the impact of the real world.
Jesse Mitchell, Director of Business Development based in Ottawa for Strader-Ferris International, who works with hundreds of cross-border companies, says that the companies were attacked with unexpected invoices: $ 50,000, $ 75,000 and $ 100,000; Some because their shipments reached the border later than expected, after midnight on Tuesday, when the tariffs began.
In other cases they did not know that they owed a rate. For example, Mitchell cited a Canadian company that sets heavy machines.
He said the company would import the engine, charge $ 50,000 for repairs and send it to the United States, and only realized that they would have to pay another 25 percent of that invoice to send it back across the border.
The Canadian companies had no choice. Many were paying the rate, he says, to avoid losing their American client.
Given that, says Mitchell, the companies on both sides contained shipments, assuming, hoping that Trump would go back quickly.
He has, to some extent. Trump has reduced tariffs on the goods considered that comply with the Canadá-Usexico agreement, which does not cover dispute areas such as wood, dairy and certain other products. Even there, the details are not clear.
“He is causing headaches for everyone, certainly in Canada, but probably in the United States,” Mitchell said.
Seeing that chaos approached, companies rushed to send products before Tuesday.
Exports from goods to the United States shot from November to January, a trend that the Bank of Montreal was linked on Thursday with tariffs, as well as the mistreated Loonie.
The Canada Chamber of Commerce said Thursday’s respite will mitigate some damages. But not almost everything.
“This is not a time to celebrate. The economy is not a toy to play,” said Matthew Holmes, vice president of the Chamber, in a statement.
“The constant threats and economic uncertainty have affected it. We see it in delayed commercial investments, trembling consumer confidence, stagnant capital flows and a volatile stock market. People’s livelihoods are at stake.”
For Canada, those livelihoods exist in numerous sectors. The tens of thousands of Canada’s steel workers can feel it next week, not to mention the much larger automotive sector.
The economy may not be a game. But the workers will be forced to play it, round, after the round, after the round.
