'Dumbfounded and disgusted': Canada's car capital grapples with Trump tariffs

A long-awaited tariff announcement from U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday spurred confusion and concern in Canada's automotive capital.

The president, in a lengthy Rose Garden address at the White House, provided some relief to Canada by leaving it out of a list of nations facing new reciprocal tariffs from the U.S.

But the Trump administration is maintaining previously announced tariffs affecting Canada, including up to 25 per cent levies on assembled vehicles and some automotive parts. 

"I'm dumbfounded and disgusted at the same time, because we're talking about people's livelihoods on the line," said John D'Agnolo, president of Unifor Local 200.

D'Agnolo's nearly 2,000 members build Ford's V8 engines, which are shipped to the U.S. to be put into trucks and Mustangs. 

The White House has said that engines are among the "key automobile parts" subject to a 25 per cent tariff starting this week. However, parts that comply with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) are tariff-free, until the administration "establishes a process to apply tariffs to their non-U.S. content." 

D'Agnolo said many of the parts that go into the engines are American-made, but others come from Canada, China and other countries. 

"This is why it's so confusing," D'Agnolo said. 

D'Agnolo said that if a 25 per cent tariff applies to the engines his workers build, it would cost the company an extra $75,000 for each trailer load of engines it sends across the border.

"That will raise the price of these vehicles substantially, and then no one will buy them," he said. "It's going to destroy a company that's one of the most American companies, period."

D'Agnolo and industry experts have warned that due to North America's deeply integrated automotive supply chains, tariffs could hurt workers on both sides of the border. 

Parts can cross the border a half-dozen times before final assembly, meaning that any U.S. tariffs – as well as Canadian or Mexican counter-tariffs – would raise costs significantly, both for manufacturers and consumers. 

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Windsor-Essex is home to more than 52,000 manufacturing workers, according to employment non-profit Workforce Windsor-Essex – thousands of whom work in the automotive industry.