By Bo Erickson and David Shepardson
DEARBORN, Michigan/WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada is not relevant to the United States but Canada wants it, as he pushed for companies to bring manufacturing back to American soil.
“There’s no real advantage to it, it’s irrelevant,” Trump said. “Canada loves it. Canada wants it. They need it.”
The Detroit Three rely heavily on supply chains that include significant production of parts in Mexico and Canada and the three produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles each year in both countries.
Major automakers including Tesla, Toyota and Ford in November urged the Trump administration to extend the USMCA, saying it is crucial to American auto production. The car manufacturers, which also included General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Stellantis. The American Automobile Policy Council, which represents the Detroit Three automakers, said the USMCA “allows automakers operating in the United States to compete globally through regional integration, which yields efficiency gains” and amounts to “tens of billions of dollars in annual savings.”
Mark Reuss, president of General Motors, said during an event Tuesday: “Our supply chains go through all three countries. It is not simple. It is very complex,” he said. “The whole piece of North America is a great power.”
Trump made the comments as he toured a Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan, ahead of a speech on the economy he is giving in Detroit.
“The problem is that we don’t need their product. You know, we don’t need cars made in Canada. We don’t need cars made in Mexico. We want to take them here. And that’s what’s happening,” he said.
Stellantis said in November that under the 15% tariffs with Japan, US vehicles that comply with North American content rules “will continue to lose market share to Asian imports, to the detriment of American auto workers.”
The USMCA is up for review this year to decide whether to let it lapse or work out another deal.
The trade pact, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020 and was negotiated during Trump’s first term as president, requires the three countries to undertake a joint review after six years.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson, David Shepardson, Kalea Hall and Katharine ‌Jackson; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Chizu Nomiyama)