Ottawa says automakers that keep building in Canada will get a tariff exemption [Video]

Automobile companies that continue to manufacture vehicles in Canada will get an exemption from Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs as U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to upend the North American industry with steep import duties.

Federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced Tuesday that auto manufacturers will be allowed to import a certain number of U.S.-assembled vehicles — ones that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade — free of the countermeasure tariffs Ottawa imposed in response to Trump’s levies.

The number of tariff-free vehicles a company is permitted to import will drop if there are reductions in Canadian production or investment.

“The North American automobile sector is the most integrated industrial manufacturing sector in the world, particularly the Canadian-U.S. auto sector,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday. “And so President Trump’s tariffs are an attempt in some degree to pull apart that integration and the benefits that come from that integration.”

Carney …