Trump says U.S. doesn't need Canadian cars, lumber or dairy. Consumers may not agree

When Donald Trump was musing about using "economic force" to potentially acquire Canada, the U.S. president-elect was, at the same time, also dismissing the importance of his country's No. 1 trading partner.

"We don't need anything they have," Trump said of Canada, during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida earlier this week.

He rejected any reliance the United States may have on trade with its northern neighbour, seeming to ignore that Canadian exports to the U.S. in 2023, for example, totalled nearly $418.6 billion US, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nor did Trump mention the roughly 4.4 million barrels of oil the U.S. receives per day from Canada, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a little more than half of all its imported oil and its No. 1 import.

He did zero in on the auto, lumber and dairy industries, saying that the U.S. could fill Americans' significant demand for these products.

But as figures and experts suggest, U.S. demand means Canada may not be so easily replaced.

Trump told reporters that in reference to Canada, the U.S. doesn't need "their cars" and that he'd rather make them in Detroit.

While Canada doesn't make any of its own vehicles for mass production, it's home to plants from U.S.-based auto manufacturers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis North America.

Because of its big appetite for vehicles, the U.S. is the largest auto importer in the world — and Canada is one of its biggest suppliers. For example, more than 1.5 million vehicles were produced in Canada in 2023, according to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association.

In a normal year, according to Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, about 80 per cent of of vehicles made in Canada are exported to the U.S.

So, could U.S. auto manufacturers, as Trump suggests, remove all of their plants from Canada, set up shop in their country and produce all of their vehicles from home?

"Absolutely," said Dimitry Anastakis, a professor of business history at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and an expert on the auto industry.

But there would be a big catch: the disintegration of the North American auto industry, he said.

"It might help Americans and American producers, but the cost to getting there would be so tremendous that it would probably tip the North American industry into a recession," he said. "These are supply chains that have been developed for decades."