BURLINGTON - The roller coaster of trade tariffs from the U.S. imposed on Canadian products has manufacturers, developers and the tourism industry in Burlington unsure what to do, which way to turn, and how to understand what might come next.
BurlingtonToday spoke to a few of the businesses in the city to see if they had any insight or advice on what we can expect during these turbulent times.
Terry Caddo, president of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce said, “The best we can do is support our local economy whenever possible. Buy local, buy provincial, buy Canadian.”
Caddo also noted that some local hotels are noticing a dip in reservations for the coming months indicating a softening in the tourism area.
The Chamber announced a ‘Tariff & Trade Hub’, an online resource for companies looking for the latest updates, insights and support. Here’s a link to it.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward has set up a Tariff Task Force of community stakeholders to respond to the threat of tariffs, asked staff to review pending city contracts to determine options, and directed the city to create a ‘buy Canadian’ online resource.
The mayor was also part of a Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative delegation to Washington D.C. to meet with members of Congress and the U.S. Senate March last week.
“Trade was a key part of our conversation,” Meed Ward told BurlingtonToday. “When you get both Republican and Democratic mayors, congress members and senators working together to understand what the impacts of 25 per cent tariffs would do to both sides of the Great Lakes’ economies it’s a step in the right direction. It’s still a very volatile situation but if it’s about renegotiating our trade agreement, then let’s just do that.”
A spokesperson from BSB Manufacturing noted that several of the company’s suppliers have already given notice that their prices will increase in reaction to the proposed tariffs. While many of BSB’s inputs come from the U.S., the company is actively looking for Canadian suppliers.
With more than 40 employees at its Burlington plant on John Lucas Drive, BSB is a production CNC machining facility serving the automotive, agricultural and industrial product markets.
“Tariffs are going to impact us in every direction,” the spokesperson said. “If our suppliers can’t afford to ship us their products that affects us and the entire automotive supply chain could shut down. It’s a ripple effect. In addition, we’re in the middle of a production launch for an EV hybrid vehicle and the forecast may be delayed or reduced so it’s a huge impact for us. It’s hard to pivot when you’ve invested in machinery and tooling.”
JFE Shoji Power Canada, located on Laurentian Drive, is a manufacturer of electrical steel parts for a wide variety of electrical transformers, and is one of the largest producers of this type of product in North America.
“Our electrical steel products are extremely niche in the global economy,” explained Ron Harper, CEO of JFE Shoji Power Canada (JSC). “We supply what’s called a transformer core component made out of electrical steel that is a critical part for our North American OEM clients, who make electrical transformers.”
“We bring globally sourced materials to primarily the U.S. market,” said Harper. “That service provides a competition to U.S. producers. We’ve dealt with this issue for a long time (50 years), so recent discussions of tariffs means we’re not caught flat footed. We’ve got all the established connections in place. Our U.S. trade lawyer has been working for a decade to make them familiar with what we do. The U.S. Transformer Manufacturing Assoc., trade officials in Ottawa and Washington are all well known to us.
Harper feels society’s exponential increase in the use of electricity, the expansion of EV transportation, and the growing demand for AI and data centres, makes the case to have JSC’s products avoid major tariffs.
“Now is not the time to put obstacles in the way of investment in growth,” stated Harper. “We are doing our part to educate how critical this supply chain is to national security and electrification. And certainly, the U.S. administration has put a priority on both of those.”