U.S. President Donald Trump’s assertion this week that he doesn’t want Canadian cars in the U.S. market doesn’t reflect how the North American automotive industry actually works, experts say.
Trump on Tuesday threatened to slap 50 to 100 per cent tariffs on the Canadian auto sector should the two countries fail to reach a deal, claiming Canada “stole” the car industry from the U.S.
“We don’t want their cars, we want to make the cars in Detroit,” he told Fox News.
But the U.S. and Canadian auto industries are so deeply integrated, experts say, that there’s currently no such thing as a purely Canadian or American car.
“I think it would be extremely difficult to find, if not impossible, frankly, to find a car that is entirely made in Canada or entirely made in the U.S. — or entirely made in Mexico, for that matter,” said Tu Nguyen, an economist at RSM Canada, a Toronto-based consulting …