Is there such a thing as a Made in America car anymore?

Peter Armstrong · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 28, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Donald Trump says helium wants to spot much vehicles made successful America. It's a useful slogan and mightiness erstwhile person been a viable idea.

The occupation is there's nary specified happening arsenic a Made successful America car anymore. And determination hasn't been for years.

Since Canada and the U.S. signed the Auto Pact successful 1965, car manufacturers person leveraged the comparative vantage successful some countries to marque the manufacture much competitive, accumulation much businesslike and vehicles much affordable.

Experts accidental tariffs would effectively undo those advantages astir immediately.

"It's the aforesaid Trump nonsense that is not backed by paperwork that is going to wounded [the] American car manufacture worse than it volition wounded Canada," said Flavio Volpe, caput of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA).

A lawsuit study

Any conveyance made successful North America is manufactured via a analyzable web of interconnected proviso chains that usage earthy materials and parts suppliers that span the full continent.

Consider the rear assembly of a car made successful North America.

That graphic was enactment unneurotic by the APMA. It says it's based connected its members' actual contracts. Company names were redacted to respect competitory confidentiality.

Each dot represents a antithetic institution providing the worldly oregon portion required to implicit the rear assembly.

To interruption the process down adjacent further, everything starts arsenic earthy worldly successful 1 country, is shaped into a portion successful another, past moved again to beryllium assembled into a broader component, earlier yet being assembled and yet shipped to a customer.

Rubber is processed successful Monterrey, Mexico. It's shaped into a connector successful Iowa. That portion fits into the power limb assembly made successful Brampton, Ont. The power limb is enactment unneurotic arsenic portion of the rear suspension assembly successful Detroit. The rear assembly is shipped to Windsor, Ont., for last assembly and yet sold successful California.

The caller NAFTA

You could gully up a akin concatenation for each idiosyncratic portion successful immoderate car.

The full process is lone doable erstwhile those components tin determination crossed borders tariff-free.

That was a cardinal constituent of the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement in 2018. When it was announced, Trump heralded the recently signed Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement arsenic a breakthrough for the American car industry.

"Once approved, this volition beryllium a caller dawn for the American car manufacture and for the American autoworker," said Trump successful 2018.

And yet, arsenic helium announced his latest tariff salvo, Trump's proclamation fundamentally declared his ain commercialized woody a failure.

"I americium besides advised that agreements entered into earlier the issuance of Proclamation 9888, specified arsenic the revisions to the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), person not yielded capable affirmative outcomes," wrote the administration.

But undoing the presumption quo volition travel with tremendous cost.

"No car is genuinely made successful conscionable North America," said Patrice Maltais from the manufacture relation Global Automakers Canada.

He says that continent-wide quality of the intricate proviso concatenation outgo billions of dollars and took decades to build.

"You person to fundamentally untangle a batch of those proviso chains and enactment caller ones down, and that takes a batch of clip and it takes a batch of money."

He says a caller manufacturing plant could outgo anyplace from $2 cardinal to $10 billion.

"That's conscionable the plant, past you person to look astatine each the proviso chains for that plant."

Even if the automakers really agreed to determination accumulation to the U.S., it would instrumentality years to build.

Tariffs would erode industry, experts say

In the meantime, experts accidental the manufacture would beryllium clobbered by tariffs.

"You'll consciousness it astir immediately," said Jan Griffiths, a erstwhile American car enforcement and founder of the manufacture association Gravitas Detroit.

WATCH | Carney announces program meant to assistance workers affected by tariffs: 

Rather than trying to usage tariffs to unit alteration that would outgo everyone, she says Trump should connection a viable way guardant for Canada, Mexico and the United States.

"If this is astir renegotiating USMCA, past let's bash it, but let's bash it present and let's instrumentality the uncertainty retired of the system. Businesspeople cannot grip this level of uncertainty," she told CBC News.

But Griffiths says the manufacturing basal that erstwhile existed successful the U.S. "is nary longer here." It was agelong agone replaced by 1 of the astir businesslike and astir cost-effective manufacturing processes successful the world.

Even the menace of undoing that web has already shaken markets, eroded assurance and prompted a astir unprecedented level of interest among 1 of the biggest industries connected the continent.