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According to a senior Canadian official, Canada wants to look at joint ventures and investments with Chinese companies in the next three years to build Canadian electric cars with Chinese expertise.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the goal is for Canada to be the first country in North America to build such an EV.
US President Donald Trump’s decision to ban Chinese electric vehicles from entering the US is a fundamental mistake, the official said.
The official also said Canada had put the Trump administration on notice and had been given advance warning of its decision on Friday. Allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs to enter the Canadian market each year at a 6.1 percent tariff — up from a 100 percent tariff by 2024.
Kirsten Hill, Canada’s ambassador to the United StatesMan, he knew oHillman confirmed that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was aware that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping had met, the official added. The official said the US response was neutral.
Canada has reached an agreement with China to import tens of thousands of Chinese electric vehicles at low tariffs in exchange for lower tariffs on canola, lobster, crab and peas, Prime Minister Mark Carney said.
Canada did not take the U.S. by surprise, the official said. Asked about Canada refraining from matching US tariffs on Chinese EVs, Carney said it was doing the right thing.
“That’s what he has to do. Signing a trade deal is a good thing for him. If you can make a deal with China, you should do that,” the US president said.
But other officials in Washington were more concerned. According to Greer, the deal is “problematic for Canada.”
“There’s a reason we don’t sell a lot of Chinese cars in the United States. It’s because we have tariffs to protect American automobiles and Americans from those vehicles,” he told CNBC on Friday morning.
US Transportation Secretary Shane Duffy said Canada regrets bringing Chinese cars into the market in retrospect.
The federal government is working on an auto policy, expected to be released in February, that it hopes will help Canada’s 125,000 workers grow auto jobs and eventually “leapfrog” the U.S.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he hadn’t heard from Premier Mark Carney before the announcement of an electric vehicle arrangement with China, saying, “It wasn’t really thought through.”
Trump has said that the US does not need Canadian-made cars and that the country’s auto industry has been hit with tariffs on Canadian-made passenger cars. The US president has pushed car factories to move operations to the US to avoid tariffs.
Industry Minister Melanie Joly said last month The government serves the automotive giant Stellantis Notice of default under funding contracts related to projects in Windsor and Brampton, Ont.
The move comes after Stellants revealed last October that Canceling plans to build a Jeep model at the Brampton plant And move production to America
The government plans to give priority to foreign automakers that manufacture vehicles in Canada over imports assembled abroad, the official said.
Foreign automakers that do not manufacture vehicles in Canada will be subject to less favorable terms, the official said.
On Friday, Carney said the deal with China would make some EVs more affordable for Canadians, and that’s only a small slice of Canada’s domestic market — about three percent.