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Canadian Auto Union Cozying Up To President-Elect Trump’s Rhetoric

Following a few tense days between President-elect Donald Trump and both Ford and General Motors, Jerry Dias, president of Canadian union Unifor, has spoken out regarding Trump’s stance on the auto industry.

While it remains to be seen if Trump’s tweets have any teeth, Dias did tell The Toronto Star it’s good to talk tough with the U.S. automakers.

“Trump, as crazy as he is, is showing governments can play a role” in helping to strengthen the auto sector to save or even create jobs, said Dias, whose union represents 23,000 Canadian employees of GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.

Throughout the campaign, Trump consistently targeted Mexico production, despite Canada being the United States’ largest trade partner. Canada plays a massive role in auto production, assembling and shipping vehicles to the United States from Ford, GM and FCA.

For now, though, Dias doesn’t think Canada is in Trump’s crosshairs.

“He’s throwing grenades everywhere right now, and it’s working for him. But his ire is not at Canada, it’s at Mexico,” he said.

Dias went on to support the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many feel no longer works in today’s economic climate. The UAW has also shown support for a renegotiated agreement.

However, analysts still warn of imposing tariffs and border taxes on any goods coming back into the United States.

“It comes down to two words: Not good,” said the president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants.

“We’re already in serious trouble in the auto sector on the manufacturing side. Tariffs sound good on paper, but they increase prices for consumers,” which prevents them from buying, he said.

Former GM Authority staff writer.

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Comments

  1. I call bull on the “…increase prices for consumers” concern trolling against people that want protections, standards in dealing with other societies. Those of us on that side are not so hedonistic to not consider our family and friends.

    In my circle, there’s people that have been valedictorians or very near it. Many have university degree’s (even masters, even stem) that haven’t improved their careers. These people have lived prudent, good lives, and treated their families well.

    When you hear of an engineer, who’s done everything right and is putting a talented daughter through a very expensive school, is training the foreign people intended to replace him, something is very wrong.

    Reply
  2. “He’s throwing grenades everywhere right now, and it’s working for him. But his ire is not at Canada, it’s at Mexico,”

    Trump only has to turn around to lob those grenades at us. If his concern is about GMs plants in Mexico exporting products to the US, wait until he learns of GMs plants in Canada that export to the US. It’ll be seen as a theft of American factory jobs, and no amount of saying ‘Oh, but they’re Canadian so it’s okay’ will change the fact that we simply aren’t Americans.

    This mess isn’t over yet.

    Reply
  3. Even if Donald Trump repeals NAFTA, it is unclear whether Trump could apply tariffs on products manufactured in Canada and Mexico as these companies may file a class action lawsuit against the US Federal Government and force the Trump Admin to either buy their factories located in Canada and Mexico at a cost of tens of $Trillions or allow the companies to continue import their products without tariffs.

    Reply
  4. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing. But I’ve been on GM Authority so long, that I can tell who wrote the article just by reading the title.

    Reply

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