The US administration’s current tariff policy is gutting a family business. Not that most Americans would think about it. The push to re-patriate the automotive industry to the United States is supposed to “bring back” jobs lost to overseas countries. The truth is that in Canada, many of those jobs were created over a hundred years ago.
The Ford Motor Company of Canada, founded 1904
General Motors Company of Canada 1918
The Chrysler Corporation of Canada 1925
American Motors Corporation (Nash & Hudson) 1954
The Big Three were building and shipping cars to Canadians before WWII. Four, and five generations of Canadian families have worked in the factories, the shops, accessories and parts businesses feeding these successful companies. It’s in their DNA. They have taken loans to buy cars, mortgages to build homes, grow towns, and slogged to work for their families.
And why are these companies in Canada? Market opportunity. Historically, Canada had no native manufacturers to serve its consumers, and the automakers in Detroit and Japan saw the potential of exploiting this virgin market. This expansion wasn’t about finding cheap labor. This was about mining Canadian dollars.
Now we are led to believe that Canada is “ripping off” the United States by building cars and trucks in facilities that have been financed by Canadian manufacturers. I think it’s a fair bet that every investment that has been made on Canadian soil in the last seventy-five years has been supported by Canadian loans and a motivated labor force.
These industries existed decades before NAFTA. The current tariff action isn’t a market correction. It’s a government-driven, grand-theft-auto: generations of jobs and livelihoods stolen by Presidential edict.
I have to remind you, gentle reader, that Canada is not just a neighbor. It is a friend and ally. Canadians have pitched in whenever the need arose: Dieppe, Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iranian hostages, emergency 911-housing. Canadian first responders have convoyed to floods and tornados in the US heartland, quakes, hurricanes in the south, and to forest fires in the west.
Worse than a slap in the face, this is a stab in the back.
Yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said it best: “The old relationship we had with the United States… based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation… is over.”
April 2, 2025 will be remembered as the shameful day the U.S. shuttered a family business.
