Trump’s Trade War: Responses from Canadian and Mexican Labour

In Hamilton, ArcelorMittal announced in June that it was closing its wire-drawing mill, impacting 153 workers, members of the United Steelworkers (USW) Local 5328. In May, 40 workers at Bull Moose Tube in Burlington from USW local 14162, also saw their plant shut down due to the saturation of imports in the Canadian steel market and the effects of the tariffs. Meanwhile, dozens of factories across southern Ontario in the auto parts sector have imposed layoffs, and the Detroit Three auto makers have cut shifts at some assembly plants. Workers at the Windsor-based Titan Tool and Die who are members of Unifor Local 195, tried to block the company from moving manufacturing equipment to its factories in the US. Since August, they have been locked out by their employer.

Following pressure from the USW and other unions, the federal government announced stricter controls against steel imports into the Canadian market. Yet thousands of manufacturing and related jobs remain at risk due to the loss of markets in the US, the destination of 77% of Canada’s exports in 2023, amid Trump’s claim that “we don’t need Canadian cars or steel.”

Government commitments to use Canadian-made steel, aluminum, lumber, and other products in publicly funded infrastructure projects is important, as are ongoing efforts to diversify trade away from the US, and measures to retrain affected workers and expand access to Employment Insurance. However, the Trump administration continues to roll out new sectoral tariffs targeting higher value-added goods made in Canada. Unchallenged, the outcome could be the comprehensive dismantling of advanced industrial capacity in Canada. More needs to be done to develop and follow through with a proactive industrial policy that develops and protects the value added to the Canadian economy of well-paying manufacturing employment.

In the context of rising US-China geopolitical tension as well as a global transition to a low-carbon economy, there is more hype than ever about Canada’s large quantities of strategic minerals, metals and other natural resources. It is critical that these resources not only be processed and manufactured in Canada, and the resulting jobs and value shared equitably with workers and local communities, including Indigenous peoples, but that Canada also develops its secondary manufacturing capacities ensuring downstream value-added work is built within Canada and not offshore.

For decades, our governments alongside business lobbyists have insisted we place our trust in free trade and globalization to develop the Canadian economy. Cheap consumer goods proliferated, but deindustrialization unfolded alongside the growth of precarious jobs and income inequality. During the pandemic, we learned Canada lacked the capacity to manufacture not only vaccines and sophisticated artificial respiration equipment, but basic personal protective equipment. Now, Trump’s policies have forced Canada not only to think seriously about the measures needed to develop a well-rounded economy but to also ensure that US attempts at reindustrialization do not further deindustrialize our already truncated industrial capacity. Looking more broadly, this conflict occurs amid an urgent need to build more affordable housing to address a crisis in the cost of living, as well as public transit and renewable energy infrastructure to both make our cities more liveable and to address the climate crisis. If Trump prevents our vehicles from being sold in the US, while also attempting to sabotage the adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs), then a partial solution could be the federal government repurposing Canada’s underutilized industrial capacity to produce EVs for public procurement.

Amid the current trade war, Mexico was initially ignored and derided by Canadian politicians in a vain attempt to win Trump’s favour. Meanwhile, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum launched Plan Mexico, an ambitious multi-year program to shift her country from low-wage manufacturing that competed with cheap imports, into higher value-added industries from semi-conductors to pharmaceuticals. This includes a project to develop a 100% made in Mexico electric car half the price of the cheapest EVs imported from China that are currently dominating the Mexican market. This will be done with government support for the development of local firms, a key role for publicly owned enterprises and highly targeted tariffs, among other strategies. Potential exists for Canada and Mexico to coordinate their industrial strategies to find compatibility.

Following a visit by Prime Minister Carney to Mexico in September 2025, the two governments released a three-year “action plan” to increase bilateral cooperation. It will be important to follow whether this leads to meaningful economic development for the two countries that generates high quality employment, beyond the current role of Canadian mining companies in Mexico, the export of agricultural products and migrant workers to Canada, and schemes to sell natural gas to Mexico.

The USW has members in both Canada and the US, but moreover, it has long built alliances with unions around the world, including Mexico, recognizing that blaming lower-paid workers elsewhere lets exploitative employers off the hook. In the long run, the only meaningful ways to build security for workers in sectors highly exposed to the global economy, are to reduce the ability of employers to relocate jobs by building up our domestic economy, while being in solidarity with workers around the world to raise standards globally.

The Canada United States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020. While the latter’s measures promoting the free flow of capital across borders were retained, as a modest response to NAFTA’s race to the bottom for workers’ wages in all three countries, CUSMA introduced a chapter on labour rights, including the Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). This has allowed workers in Mexico whose employers export to the US or Canada, to report violations of their rights to unionize or collectively bargain. While not all cases have been successful, and phoney pro-employer “protection unions” continue to predominate, in dozens of cases genuine unions have used the RRM to organize. These victories have been won by workers in the factories of major multinationals including General Motors, Panasonic, 3M and Goodyear Tire, as well as by thousands of even lower paid, predominantly women workers employed by obscure contractors to sew denim jeans for the biggest brands. Labour activists in Mexico, Canada and the US are calling for the expansion of the RRM to cover more workers, including the agricultural workers who are among the most exploited and who fill the produce aisles in Canada’s grocery stores, as well as to workers in Canada and the US, where freedom of association is also frequently violated, including recently in both countries by Amazon.

In September 2025, the Steelworkers Humanity Fund hosted a “Globalization Roadshow”, featuring union leaders and researchers from the United Steelworkers, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Miners’ Union (Los Mineros) of Mexico and the Authentic Labour Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo) of Mexico. With presentations to workers across southern Ontario and Quebec, as well as at York and McMaster University, they discussed the effects of Trump’s trade wars and tariffs in Canada and Mexico, as well as how to build a more resilient economy that prioritizes workers and their communities. As the Canadian government enters the review of CUSMA with the US and Mexico in 2026, we need to build a movement for a trade agenda that benefits workers, develops local economies and practices international solidarity.

Paul Bocking is a project officer with the Steelworkers Humdanity Fund. He obtained his PhD in Geography at York University in 2018. The opinions expressed are his own.