Since 1988, Lanex Manufacturing’s massive presses on the edge of Windsor, Ontario, have closed the door buttons, folding seats, exhaust hangers, frame straps and other lower -case metal pieces that enter vehicles from corvettes to mini.
But these days, concerns about the future are impregnated the factory as elected President Donald J. Trump is getting ready to enter the White House. Threatened to impose duties of 25 percent on all goods exported from Canada to the United States. In Windsor, this would desert his life: cars and whatever comes into them.
“Everyone is waiting for the next shoe to fall,” said Bruce Lane, Lanex’s president, in her meeting room, whose walls were made of painted cement. “If Windsor lost its car industry, Windsor would not survive.”
Few Canadian cities know as well as Windsor to integrate the economies of the two countries. The city is just opposite the Detroit River from Detroit and the flag of Canada with maple leaves often waving next to the stars and stripes there. And no industry has been overwhelmed beyond the border for as long as the automotive industry.
“These workers here in Windsor are more exposed to trade with the United States than anyone else,” Prime Minister Justin Trinto told a steel factory during a recent visit to the city.
Mr Trump, he added, “proposes duties that will hurt not only people here in Windsor, but also people across the country and even in the United States.”
Windsor’s two major milestones are shared with Detroit: the $ 5.7 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge, scheduled to open this year, and the 96 -year -old Ambassador bridge, which carries about $ 300 million to cross -border trade each day. Of the $ 440 billion to Canada’s annual exports to the United States, only oil and gas produce a larger amount of cars, trucks and car spare parts.
But with the Canadian officials accepting Mr Trump in his speech that he will follow his threat to duties, Mr Leine and others in the automotive industry are already preparing for the possible consequences.
George Papp is the CEO of Papp Plastics, whose headquarters are close to the imposing new hanging bridge. He said that his customers in the US, mainly automakers, would simply rely on the terms of the contracts he has with them and deduct the cost of the duties from the amount they pay for him.
“Who will accept the blow?” said Mr Pap. “I and people like me and companies like mine.”
Flavio Volpe, president of the Union of Car Spare Manufacturers, a Canadian commercial group, estimated that most of its members had single -digit profit margins and that the duties that Mr Trump threatened would be catastrophic.
The interplay of the automotive industry between the two countries was established in 1965 when Canada and the United States reached an agreement that essentially eliminated the borders for the industry. Today, 90 percent of cars and trucks manufactured in Canada are shipped to the United States, mainly by train.
In Lanex, small metal parts that few drivers will ever see for forged with a pressure of more than 600 tonnes of the company’s presses. Their trips show how confused the automakers of the two countries have become.
As a small supplier, Mr Lane does not directly deal with automakers, but sells his products through larger spare parts manufacturers. The seating lock hooks made by Lanex for mini van Honda are sent to a factory elsewhere in Ontario, where they are placed with other accessories and then sent to an assembly line in Alabama owned by Honda, a Japanese company.
Mr Lane’s factory sent accessories to Michigan for heat treatment, brought them back to Windsor for more treatment and then sold them to an American company.
“Windsor is used to going beyond the border,” Mr Lane said. “It’s like getting out of bed in the morning.”
The turmoil of potential duties comes at an already difficult time for the Canadian automotive industry. Many car spare parts manufacturers have not yet seen their business returning to levels before the Coronovirus pandemic due to car sales delays. In 2020, Lanex had about 60 employees working in two shifts, but now has about two dozen employees performing only one shift.
Stress is particularly intense in Windsor, which has a metropolitan population of about 484,000 inhabitants. In addition to truck truck trucks on the Ambassador Bridge, the city’s most obvious car symbol is a giant Stellantis plant producing mini van Chrysler Pacifica as well as Dodge Charger cars.
A city in the city, Steland based in Europe employs 4,500 factory workers. With the help of billions of dollars in Canadian subsidies, it manufactures a consortium battery factory with the South Korean LG company in Windsor and recently spent $ 1.89 billion (about $ 1.3 billion) to reactivate the factory for construction Along with gasoline. -Freedom.
But, like many automakers, Stelandis is now in recession as it competes with the transition to electric vehicles and competition from China.
James Stewart, president of the local trade union representing Windsor’s Stelands workers, said he did not believe that a large invoice would necessarily bring a deadly blow to Stelantis’ activities in Windsor, given how much the company had invested.
But with much of Windsor’s financial well -being linked closely to trade with the United States, Mr Stewart said, duties would cause a heavy blow, including closing businesses, redundancies and production cuts.
“We are a Detroit suburb. We have always felt that way, “he said, adding that Windsor seemed” under attack and for no reason. “
Mr Trump initially described the duties as a way to push Canada and Mexico to better secure their borders to limit the flow of immigrants without documents.
But he also thought of making Canada in the 51st state, noting that the United States had largely invested in Canada’s military defense and threatened to use financial violence to annex. He also talked about what he describes as a “subsidy” of Canada from the United States, an obvious reference to the US trade deficit with Canada, mainly due to oil and gas imports.
The Trinto government is expected to say in detail how he would react to any US duties on Monday, the day Mr Trump will take over his duties.
But Canada’s relatively small economy makes it difficult for the country to cause significant economic damage to the United States, although contributions to specific products could harm individual states. The retaliation would also raise prices in Canada.
Back at the Lanex plant, Mr Lane said that, by pure coincidence, the company had begun a “secret” construction project that is not related to cars and that unexpectedly had been a possible offset over tariffs. He refused to offer any details to avoid competitors’ information.
Mr Papp, owner of a plastic company, said that although it would be against the duties, something that would hurt his business, he was a fan of Mr Trump and understood why the elected president had argued that they needed duties to help reconstruct of industry. in the United States.
Regardless of what happens, Mr Pope said, Canada and the United States will always remain unmistakable allies.
“You can’t separate our countries,” he said. “They’re stuck together.”
