# Carney calls Trump's auto tariff a 'direct attack' and vows Canada will respond
The Canadian prime minister said the 25% import tax threatens jobs and trade, and he set Ottawa talks for Thursday.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose a 25% tariff on auto imports is a "direct attack" on Canada and warned that his government would defend workers and companies. Carney made the remarks on Wednesday after Trump said the auto tariff would be permanent, setting up the latest and most immediate collision in a trade fight that is already pressuring North American manufacturing. Carney said he needs to see the details of the executive order before he chooses retaliation, but he also said the issue is serious enough to pull him away from the campaign trail and back to Ottawa on Thursday for a special Cabinet committee meeting on U.S. relations.
The Canadian response is already being built around the auto sector’s scale. Carney announced a CA$2 billion strategic response fund to support jobs affected by the tariffs. AP reported that autos are Canada’s second-largest export and that the industry directly employs 125,000 Canadians, with almost another 500,000 jobs in related industries. That makes the tariff more than a symbolic move: it touches workers, suppliers, assembly plants and the border logistics that move parts back and forth between the two countries. Carney told supporters that Canada would be there for auto workers and that the country would stand up for its own companies.
The Ambassador Bridge, which Carney used as his backdrop in Windsor, is part of why the tariff matters so much. AP reported that the crossing carries a quarter of all trade between Canada and the United States and moves about CA$140 billion in goods a year. In auto manufacturing, parts can cross the border several times before being assembled, meaning even a single tariff change can add cost at multiple points in the supply chain. Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned that plants on both sides of the border could shut simultaneously if the tariff goes ahead. That is not a small adjustment to trade policy; it is a disruption to a tightly integrated industrial system.
Carney also framed the tariff as part of a broader deterioration in the bilateral relationship. He said the relationship between Canada and the United States has changed and that Canada did not change it. The new prime minister, sworn in on March 14, has still not had a phone call with Trump, something AP described as unusual for leaders who have just taken office. Carney said it would be appropriate for the two men to speak because of the action the president has taken and said he was sure that would happen soon. In the meantime, he is trying to prepare Canadians for more than one round of pressure. Trump has already placed 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum, and he is threatening broader levies on Canadian products and on other trading partners.
The timing matters because Carney is also in the middle of an election campaign, and Trump’s trade moves are becoming a campaign issue in their own right. Carney said the trade war is hurting Americans as well as Canadians, pointing to the Conference Board’s consumer confidence reading, which fell to its lowest level since January 2021. He argued that the tariff policy hurts workers and consumers on both sides of the border and that the president’s approach is not just a Canadian problem. Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre took a similar line, saying the tariffs would damage American and Canadian auto workers alike and urging Trump to "knock it off." The immediate question is whether the White House will follow through on the threatened tariff, or whether the latest shock will end up being another turn in a series of on-again, off-again trade measures. For now, Canada is preparing for the worst while still leaving room for a negotiated retreat.
