May 6, 2025 — Uncertainty now defines North America’s auto corridor. Jack Lifton warns that Donald Trump’s tariff threats have evolved from “a negotiating ploy” into a disruptive force that companies must cost into their balance sheets. “These changes of mind are enormously expensive,” he tells InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, noting that General Motors has already flagged potential tariff‐related charges in its latest earnings report and is refocusing on its 80 U.S. facilities to mitigate risk. Yet even this strategic pivot offers no comfort: “You can’t plan manufacturing budgets on ‘maybe this will happen, maybe that’ll happen,’” Lifton says, emphasizing that tariffs amount to nothing more than “a tax.”
The bedrock reality, Lifton argues, is that American and Canadian production lines are inseparable. Trump’s claim that “we don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber… we don’t need anything” ignores the fact that vehicles built in Ontario are “American cars that are manufactured in Canada.” Lifton recounts decades of cross-border integration—from Chrysler’s minivan plant in Windsor to a dozen General Motors assembly lines once scattered across Canada—observing that “the continent is one market.” Re-drawing economic boundaries today would mean re-engineering entire supply chains, relocating factories, and “changing vendors’ sources,” tasks that cannot “start and stop… on a dime.”
If Washington forces companies to repatriate production, North American consumers will ultimately shoulder higher prices—while Canada pivots toward Europe and Asia. “We can pay more for things,” Lifton cautions, but other markets will seize the opportunity: “Canadians will still make cars… they’ll go to other markets. Period.” Describing Canada as “America’s closest ally, best friend and biggest supplier of serious manufactured goods,” he warns that disrupting such a partnership could “lower the standard of living in all three countries*”—an outcome that, in his view, would be “a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, but maybe it signifies losses.”
(*The three countries Lifton is referring to are the United States, Canada, and Mexico—the partners in the USMCA (formerly NAFTA) whose integrated supply chains underpin North America’s auto and manufacturing sectors.)
To access the complete interview, click here
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