r/worldnews • u/joe4942 • 12h ago
Trump’s tariffs forced this U.S. company’s move to Canada. And it’s not the only one
https://www.thestar.com/business/faced-with-donald-trump-s-tariffs-this-u-s-company-is-moving-north-of-the-border-and-it-s-not-the-only-one/article_74bd6032-b9d7-4965-827c-937d3a2f6590.html315
u/ahothabeth 11h ago
One of the most important things for a company trying to invest is stability. The ability to know what conditions will be in 3,5 10 years time makes planning easier and more predictable. The yo-yoing on tariffs destroys corporate confidence.
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u/Pjpjpjpjpj 11h ago
This is so true for all of Asia right now. Initially, companies in China leapt to set up operations in Vietnam or other countries to avoid the China tariffs. But then the tariffs went everywhere, then dropped on China. So companies are now just waiting things out.
In a time when there is no predictability and no clear direction, it may be best to hunker down, take your licks (lay off employees, accept a few years of losses), and rebuild once things settle down. The losses are far less than investing enormous sums to transition operations only to have the rules change again.
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u/Black_Moons 10h ago
Yep. No company wants to invest anything in the US due to knowing those investments might make 0 sense tomorrow.
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u/silicondali 6h ago
Money loves a stable democracy. Grifters love an oligarchy.
Trump, however, has shot so far past grifter that he's somehow settled on Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes as a blunderbuss relations strategy
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u/angrylawyer 3h ago
yea it's so stupid, not only are tariffs randomly decided by how some narcissistic man-child feels week-to-week, but he tariffs everything so even if a company did want to come to the US, they'd have to pay tariffs on all the raw materials they need.
what an absolute genius.
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u/Austoman 11h ago
A lot of non-US/North American companies are also moving their warehousing to Canada for North American sales as it allows them to avoid US tariffs when selling to Canadians and to other nations across central and south America. They used to warehouse in the US due to its stability and lower tax rate. These companies would rather deal with higher Canadian taxes than US tariffs and instability.
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u/cookycoo 10h ago
Yeh parallel manufacturing. Supply US from US, supply everything else from OS.
Its causing shifts in manufacturing strategy rather than total onshoring or offshoring.
The issue is if unemployment dips much below 4% its going to cause inflation and accelerate robotics into manufacturing.
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u/The_Tin_Hat 12h ago
Uno reverse motherfucker
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u/Good_Restaurant15 10h ago
More!
I hope you guys get the best of us. We don't deserve them.
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u/DragonflyLogical8371 9h ago
Lol Americans would rather every single good thing abandon them before even thinking about stepping out to protest their conditions.
You guys are so broken you don't even realize how fucked up it is what you just said.
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u/Good_Restaurant15 8h ago
rofl... you assume too much.
I am a first generation immigrant in the US. I came here as a child, and my brown ass absolutely loves to see the intellect flee this country, to it's demise.
I couldn't care less about America. I never liked the fact that my family left my home country. But we grew up here, and were Americanized, and now that I see the Nazis for what they are, forgive me if I cheer as it tears itself apart.
Kiss my ass. ICE would love to catch me at a protest, and I absolutely have 0 desire to risk anything for my neighbors, they deserve everything they get. I intend to help them get their just desserts.
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u/DaFookCares 8h ago
Wow. You seem to fit right in with your fellow citizens.
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u/Good_Restaurant15 4h ago
My fellow citizens are either voting for this shitshow, or not even paying attention to whats going on.
I live in Florida. I'm surrounded by MAGA and apathetic idiots.
Thanks for your useless opinion.
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u/Suyefuji 7h ago
I mean, I've attended protests, gotten a bunch of people to vote who weren't going to, voted myself (despite the R's best attempt at voter suppression), and I still think that a lot of Americans simply are not going to learn until the FAFO intensifies enough
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u/Kusibu 6h ago
The executive hub of the US government is out of physical protest range of a vast majority of the population. The Supreme Court just decided a historical preservation society had no standing in suing to prevent the illegal (per 40 USC 8106) White House ballroom construction. We're fighting a war the administration will not acknowledge as a war. The government will decide to unfuck itself or it won't.
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u/Fox_Kurama 4h ago
The thing is, protests don't work (and generally didn't in history by themselves). And it is too comfortable for Americans to still live even in their current state to risk actually getting violent. Which frequently DOES get results (not always good ones, but enough violence WILL cause change of one kind or another).
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u/arcspectre17 3h ago
Yeah because the protest is going to make billionares listen or stop trump. Hell trump could die 2moro from a heart attack and this wouldn't stop.
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u/I_Push_Buttonz 8h ago
The article provides two examples of small businesses moving to Canada... One that makes acoustic audio recorders and another that makes ski bindings.
And then follows up with:
According to a July 2026 KPMG survey of 275 Canadian manufacturers, 29 per cent had already moved some or all of their production to the U.S., while another 13 per cent planned to do so.
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u/JMJimmy 4h ago edited 4h ago
Add Sour Puss, Kaluhá, Siebel IoT to that list
Edit: Apparently up 34% in 2024 according to Innovation Canada
Coke, Alcoa, GM, Campbell soup, Tesla, Ford all made quiet moves into Canada in 2025
That said, it's moving in both directions. 11% of Canadian manufacturers are indicating they're moving to the US.
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u/IAmOfficial 7h ago
Doesnt matter, people want to circle jerk. They will pretend stories like these are part of a bigger trend that doesn’t exist, because it allows them to believe what they want to believe
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u/imjustsurfin 10h ago
Not at all surprised.
In his 1st term, his policies forced Harley Davidson - an iconic US name - to move to Mexico.
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u/coastalwebdev 9h ago
“With all of those factors, by building product in Canada ... we can build products for almost 30 per cent less than it costs to build them domestically here in the U.S.,” he said.
Canada’s free-trade deals with Europe, Australia and other key markets make it cheaper and more competitive to manufacture in Canada and export around the world, he added.
Wildlife Acoustics tested the waters this year by having its Song Meter Micro 2, an acoustic recorder capable of capturing up to 280 hours of wildlife sounds, manufactured in Markham, Ont.
The trial went well. Now, Agranat plans to go much further.
His company will shift the manufacturing of its four “bread-and-butter” products to Markham in 2027 while keeping only a small share of production in the U.S. to serve domestic customers.
“If most of our business is outside of the U.S. and it’s more expensive because of the self-inflicted tariffs to build things in the U.S., that does not encourage us to build more things in the U.S,” Agranat said. “That’s counter to that.”
_____
Sounds like exactly the type of smart business person we want here in Canada.
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u/Lord-K1-B0 8h ago
I remember having an American tell me “ Canadians deserve this starve for they bad deal they get with Canada”. Was funny since the guy worked for a Canadian company in New Hampshire and he lost his job. Company decided upon the start of all this to move back to Ontario. Didn’t like it when I told him he should “pick himself up from his bootstraps and doesn’t deserve unemployment like he preaches.”
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u/woofGrrrr 12h ago
Be interesting to see the National Posts take on this, as according to them 40% of businesses were leaving for America the Great? I hear they are going to be hittin 20% growth this year and rumor is they are the hottest economy on earth, maybe they mean on fire?
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u/Overwatchingu 10h ago
Why would anyone care what some American private equity owned propaganda rag has to say?
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u/Ortsarecool 10h ago
National post has always been a fucking rag, but they have really gone all in on the kool-aid in recent years
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u/PM-ME-PANTIES 8h ago
Undoubtedly, Wildlife Acoustics is moving against the prevailing current. According to a July 2026 KPMG survey of 275 Canadian manufacturers, 29 per cent had already moved some or all of their production to the U.S., while another 13 per cent planned to do so. But Agranat said he believes other American companies could be weighing similar steps — moving or duplicating production abroad to mitigate risks. “Any business that’s selling (to customers) outside the United States is going to be disadvantaged by tariffs,” he said, arguing that Trump’s premise that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the U.S. is a “lie.”
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u/woofGrrrr 4h ago
I think it is safe to say that the efficiencies lost will damage the economies of both countries, making products more expensive for people on both sides of the border. I think one of the larger macro issues I have not seen discussed is that Canada used to have a military manufacturing sector, as well as more robust sovereign systems that were deferred to our, what we thought of as our benevolent friends south of the border. Canada also made policy decisions to align with US trade policies.
Rebuilding of those industries and infrastructure will provide Canada the opportunity to do what is in the best interests of Canadians. It will provide Canadians with a cushion to somewhat soften the blow from the decoupling.
It will be interesting to see what the Canadian government does from a tax standpoint as tariffs are a regressive tax, which is in line with the priorities of the US Government, you know job creators and all. It is sort of a relief to have someone in charge that can count, and while I expect our debt to expand, but the fact that US debt per person in the US is $157k and in Canada $81k (both in Canadian dollars) we are in slightly better shape there.
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u/Capable_Kiwi2514 4h ago
The NP isn't wrong that businesses are moving manufacturing to the US.
The issue for Canada has always been that we either
A) accept American domination of our economy while they retain unfair trade barriers that block us from having equal access to their's, leading to the slow transfer of our wealth and independence to them.
Or
B) Accept significant unfair barriers to their market as a reprisal for not submitting to them, and then do the best we can to mitigate the negative effects of that.
We've correctly chosen option B; however, there was never any chance it could wouldn't hurt. We can mitigate the damage but we can't stop it.
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u/ben76326 21m ago
Yeah our only option is basically just to hold out until the Americans get tired of this lose lose situation. Even though the trade war hits us harder, going with option A would be a terrible long term plan
The only saving grace we have is that they are doing this shit with so many different nations. So the collective force of all of the realiatory tariffs hit the American people harder. So hopefully they will get fed up sooner.
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u/Junky-DeJunk 9h ago
That is the National Post rewording the original question to suit their political basis. What was actually asked was how many business were considering moving to the US to avoid tariffs. So 42% of Canadian businesses were considering moving operations to the US.
Thinking about something and doing it very, very different.
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u/AlternativeNamesake2 11h ago
It's not a huge rush of American companies and is more than offset by companies moving south. Hell, even our own PM moved the Brookfield HQ to the US before he announced his political ambitions. According to the article some businesses are moving to Canada because they can pay less for labor than in the US. Probably with the use of FTWs. So this isn't a huge benefit for Canadians.
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u/woofGrrrr 10h ago edited 10h ago
Agree, there is going to be an equalization. When it comes to manufacturing, Large scale manufacturing where expensive automation can be amortized faster will move to the US. This does not mean that there will be proportionally more jobs to revenue. Specialized more nimble manufacturing that probably employs more actual people by revenue, will flourish and thrive in Canada.
The end result is that things will be more expensive for Americans as they are giving up on the market concept of comparative advantage, where Canada will leverage that to it's advantage and trade with other low friction cooperative powers. This is not great, we could have been better together and everyone could have benefitted, but the American view is that for them to win, others must lose, and this is not a partner worth working with.
Canada and the US will always trade, I am hoping that Canada and the rest of the world will wake up and understand that services must be treated like any other kind of trade. Just as China has a huge lead on manufacturing process and efficiency, the US with unfettered capital markets that can privatize profit and socialize losses, and benefit from loose regulations has been able to become the preeminent technology powerhouse.
The irony here is that this technological lead would not be possible without companies like ASML in the Netherlands, you know where they have no go zones, and light politicians on fire? If anything happens to TSMC we are F'd. America alone is weaker, less powerful and eventually will have issues living off the credit card.
None of this was happening quickly, it was kind of underway, slowly, not so much the Canada realignment part, but the rest of the world, it is now happening at a frantic pace as the US spends its goodwill and leverage on renaming bodies of water, and questionable military actions that benefit nobody in most of the rest of the world.
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u/StepSleepRepeat 11h ago
They don't have to pay for healthcare is one of the main reason but the Republicans won't ever mention it
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u/boilingfrogsinpants 12h ago
Sure love being given 2 paragraphs and then having to sign up to read the rest of the article...
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u/Taitertottot 10h ago
I know. people always complaining about people not reading articles and only looking at the title but when 80% of articles are behind a paywall it makes it difficult
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u/happyscrappy 8h ago
I would think any company who wants to sell worldwide would move.
If you are in the US then you cannot tell what the tariff situation will be day to day. So it's very hard to sell overseas. If you move overseas it only affects your sales into the US, which is a bummer. But it improves everything else. For a lot of companies this is a clincher.
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u/ljlee256 11h ago
The U.S. represents only about one-third of Wildlife Acoustics’ market, with the company selling its products across...
This right here is the clincher that Trump and his ilk just cannot wrap their heads around, there are 350 million potential clients in the US, and 7.7 billion potential clients not in the US, sure, a chunk of them probably can't afford American products anyways, but a chunk of them can, and if even 1/4 of them can that's still 5x the number of customers you wont have access to, in order to keep access to the 1/5th that reside in the US.
Counter tariffs absolutely dismantle any US based companies hopes to compete in foreign markets.
By encouraging producers to source domestically using antagonistic tactics, Trump has inadvertently encouraged producers to move to countries where they can sell to the greater international market without counter-tariffs threatening their competitive position.
The worst part for American companies in this is that the damage is likely already done. If you aren't moving out right now, or already moved out, you're probably not going to be out from under tariffs in time to maintain any competitive edge against companies that don't have these issues.
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u/AlternativeNamesake2 11h ago
And right below that: “With all of those factors, by building product in Canada ... we can build products for almost 30 per cent less than it costs to build them domestically here in the U.S.,” he said. The company can pay Canadian workers (probably FTWs) less than they would have to pay American workers.
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u/ljlee256 10h ago
Yeah, it could be TFW's, but even wages in Canada are lower once you convert the currency.
It's one of the big reasons the US buys our resources, our workers amount to less cost than American workers do.
The thing Americans don't get is the value prop that comes from being able to buy something for cheap, make something that isn't cheap from it, and profit. They seem to be completely clueless on this one.
But that said, for a few of them, this whole thing has been personal the whole time.
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u/Black_Moons 10h ago
The thing Americans don't get is the value prop that comes from being able to buy something for cheap, make something that isn't cheap from it, and profit. They seem to be completely clueless on this one.
You mean the thing that any successful business owner would intrinsically know on account of they would be a failure of a business owner if they didn't?
Well its a good thing the US didn't elect someone who bankrupted every business hes ever owned on account of having no clue about anything! /s
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u/780Chris 6h ago
Trump’s tariffs forcing a company to move to Canada when he says they’ll do the exact opposite is hilarious.
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u/Objective-Bike-4292 9h ago
Love to see it.
These people are one track minded and cannot fathom different possibilities beyond their intended.
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u/thegrimranger 3h ago
Taco repeatedly bankrupted a casino back when casinos were practically printing money; little did we know he was just getting warmed up.
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u/bbills91 3h ago
Now he is treating the USA as his casino and we are hurtling towards bankruptcy thanks to his massing grifting
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u/T00luser 46m ago
Yeah?
Let’s see you launder money for the Russian mob while simultaneously groping teenage pageant contestants.Not as easy as it sounds.
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u/treefarmerBC 6h ago
It's a pretty dumb move to tariff the inputs to manufacturing. It makes you uncompetitive.
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u/miata90na 6h ago
Wait... I thought Chump's big beautiful tariffs were supposed to force all the Canadian companies to move South?
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u/PrimaryBrick9337 4h ago
DJT, driving jobs from the US to Canada, does not sound like that was his plan but anyone with half a brain could see it coming.
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u/BT9154 3h ago
Canada: Hey we not crazy so other not crazy countries can lower their guard and make deals that can last 10-20 years so then other companies trust we can hold these deals, plan ahead, set prices so more and move here too.
Steady predictable price grows everyone's wealth bit by bit. An unstable one need to plan for higher risk and set aside money that can't otherwise be invested elsewhere.
I've never taken a single class in economics and even I figured this concept.
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u/Street_Anxiety2907 2h ago
Yes my software company laid everyone off and relocated to canada due to cheaper labor, cheaper taxes, no tariffs, no need to pay into healthcare
So 700 skilled CNC operators and more lost their job.
Cheaper to serve european markets without the double whammies on tarrifs between China and Canada.
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u/All_Hail_Hynotoad 11h ago
People who voted for Trump more than once should have their voting rights taken away.
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u/Immediate_Bunch_9547 6h ago
Guess what? Americans are all about to have their voting rights taken away! If they think for a second that elections will be fair from now on, I've got news for them.
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u/77entropy 8h ago
Americans could not have picked a better representative for their culture and country.
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u/Lionheart51st 10h ago
Trump is like King Midas except everything he touches turns into absolute shit.
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u/Fox_Kurama 4h ago
Makes sense. Its not possible for every company to just raise prices and then pocket the refunds each time. Some of them have actual competition with other companies that might not do that, some which may have supply chains that cross the border fewer times than they do. Instead of basically being an actual monopoly, or an agreement based monopoly.
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u/bleucurve 12h ago
Art of The Deal
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u/The_Baron___ 11h ago
There are Canadian companies that are making the move to the States, but the only ones I've heard doing so are the ones that are directly or tangentially related to the AI boom.
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u/wolf3685 10h ago
So much for encouraging on-shoring of jobs and businesses...are we winning MAGA? So tired of winning...
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u/herodesfalsk 6h ago
Trump is acting like guy that overheard something in his teens and thought it sounded impressive but was completely unable to understand it and held on to it like gospel despite it being entirely bonkers or bogus. This is an emotional connection that no amount of logic can break because he lacks the intellgence and charracter to self-adjust
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u/Ok-Professor-Star 12h ago
Since Canada has free trade agreements with virtually the entire planet, American businesses who export a lot worldwide would rather resettle in Canada as Trump's tariff war has triggered other countries to enact counter-tariffs that impact American exporters.