Author: Beau Erickson and David Shepherdson
DEARBORN, Mich./Washington, Jan 13 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement has nothing to do with the United States but Canada wants it as he pushes companies to bring manufacturing back to American soil.
“There’s no real advantage to it, it doesn’t matter,” Trump said. “Canada is going to love it. Canada wants it. They need it.”
The Detroit Three rely heavily on supply chains that include significant parts production in Mexico and Canada, where the Big Three produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually.
Major automakers including Tesla, Toyota and Ford urged the Trump administration in November to extend USMCA, saying it was critical to U.S. auto production. These automakers also include General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Stellantis. The U.S. Automotive Policy Council, which represents Detroit’s Big Three automakers, said the USMCA “enables automakers operating in the United States to compete globally through regional integration, thereby increasing efficiency” and “saving tens of billions of dollars annually.”
“Our supply chain spans all three countries,” General Motors President Mark Reuss said at an event on Tuesday. “It’s not simple. It’s very complex,” he said. “It’s a huge advantage across North America.”
Trump made the remarks during a visit to a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, before delivering an economic speech in Detroit.
“The problem is we don’t want their products. You know, we don’t want cars made in Canada. We don’t want cars made in Mexico. We want to bring them here. That’s what’s happening,” he said.
Stellantis said in November that under a 15% tariff on Japan, U.S. cars subject to North American content rules “will continue to lose market share to imported cars from Asia, hurting American autoworkers.”
The USMCA is up for review this year to decide whether to let it expire or strike another deal.
The trade deal, which replaced NAFTA in 2020 and was negotiated during Trump’s first term as president, requires the three countries to conduct a joint review after six years.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson, David Shepardson, Kalea Hall and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Chizu Nomiyama)
