Brampton Jeep plant at risk as Stellantis announces $13-billion U.S. expansion
In a written statement, Stellantis acknowledged that it would be moving “one model” from Canada to the U.S.
https://archive.ph/OzbkG#selection-3745.26-3755.108
This was inevitable after
over 6 months of complete inaction on the part of Carney. Last week during Carney's visit to the White House Trump griped to his face
"the problem with Canada is they want an auto plant, and we want an auto plant". Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick chimed in with
"why are we making cars in Canada?". Trump further complained that Canada "competes" with the US in cars to which Carney nodded in agreement instead of responding:
"actually Mr. President, we don't compete in cars we collaborate in producing cars and this collaboration has been good for both the United States and Canada for over thirty years and for the betterment of both countries we need to get back to collaborating".
As with his first visit to the Oval Office Carney did nothing to stand up for Canadian autoworkers. Carney
should have interjected with:
"The reason why we build cars in Canada is because Canadians BUY cars in fact Canada is the BIGGEST EXPORT MARKET for US-made cars. Canadians have been buying cars from the Detroit Big Three for over 100 years and if you stop buying Canadian made cars, we will stop buying American-made cars. It's as simple as that. Did you know Mr. President that in 2024 the US had a $7 billion SURPLUS in trade in cars with Canada with exports of almost $60 billion! You wouldn't want to lose all that business, would you?" Instead, Carney sat silent with a stupid look on his face.
In response to the Stellantis announcement Carney issued a statement in a tweet captioned
"Canada’s new government will always be there for Canadian auto workers". Could there be a bigger admission of failure? How will Carney "be there for Canadian auto workers"? Is he going to streamline the unemployment insurance claims process? Is he going to extend claims periods? No doubt there will be a few million for retraining. These Stellantis auto jobs are gone and are not coming back.
Why is it so hard for a Canadian prime minister to tell Trump that free-trade is a two-way street not a zero-sum game and if he makes it impossible for Canada to sell our manufactured goods in the United States, we will stop buying American-made products. Is there anything that the Americans make - other than the most advanced AI chips - that we cannot make ourselves or buy from friendly countries including China?
The time is past due for Carney to meet with Xi Jinping in person and work out a deal on Chinese EV's. Drop the 100% tariff and reduce to a level that will still protect Canadian production. At the same time, we should be talking with the Chinese automakers about local Canadian production. This year BYD will invest more outside of China as it builds local production around the world. Why isn't Canada getting in on this action? Of course, any Chinese factory in Canada will be highly automated as noted in the post above. In China they have "dark factories" where they don't have to have the lights on because there are no human workers just robots.
If I was advising Carney, I would tell him it is time to inflict pain on the Americans. Most automakers don't produce cars in Canada. As an example, most Tesla's, BMW's, Mercedes, Nissan's, Hyundais and KIA's sold in Canada are assembled in the United States. None of these brands build in Canada. We should immediately put 50% tariffs on these brands, and we should tell these automakers that if they can't build cars in Canada, they need to source cars from their other international plants because we do not want to buy American made cars anymore. In the case of Tesla, we need to tell Elon he has to source from China and Germany for the Canadian market. We do not want any more Tesla's made in Fremont CA or Austin TX. This will get Trump's attention!
Of course, such action will cause a temporary reduction in brands available in Canada for sale but only for a few years until we re-align our auto supply chain away from American made cars. If Carney announced such a plan Trump would do a TACO and drop all tariffs on Canada. Without the Canadian market the Detroit Big Three could not survive. The Mexicans don't buy their cars. Canada saved GM and Stellantis (Chrysler) from bankruptcy once. We won't be around to save them again.
whatever happened to Chrysler?