Canada-China Trade Deal

Podcast Episode: 0272
Should Canada let China in?

​      Can Canada secure its economic future by forging unexpected alliances? Discover why it's crucial for Canada to rethink its trade relationships in the wake of U.S. protectionist measures. By considering a partnership China, Canada can potentially revitalize its auto industry, historically linked with the United States 

​through policies like the Auto Pact. We explore the shifting dynamics as major automakers such as Ford, GM, and Stellantis adjust their manufacturing strategies, highlighting the urgent need for Canada to diversify its trade partners and protect its economic interests.  Join us on this insightful journey as we explore what a strategic Canada-China partnership could mean for the global automotive landscape and envision the potential for a unique Canadian automotive brand.

        In the past couple weeks, we've seen a lot of changes, especially in my home country, with all these tariffs going around and Donald Trump literally losing his shit on anybody who badmouths or says anything against the United States. The auto industry is one of the biggest players in my home province Not where I live, but the South and before all of this, the government gave out tons and tons of subsidies and tax benefits to woo all kinds of North American players and global players in to create a brand-new EV automotive culture. Well, that's all backfiring right now, with Trump and all of his tariffs going out. Now we've all talked about Trump and his tariffs in a previous podcast, but it's literally shutting down plants now. So, what is Canada to do? Well, why don't we listen to something that I learned about 24 years ago and make better partners with some of the BRIC nations, i.e. being China? The sea, yes, Canada versus China. We've been at war for quite a while, but maybe it's time to look at the other side of the field. So today, AutoLooks is going to be taking a look at how Canada could benefit by getting rid of the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
 
       Welcome back to the AutoLooks Podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all car companies from around the globe, all available on one dedicated location that is the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by PodBean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net.
 
       So, like I said in the beginning, Canada versus China yeah, you might think of it. That's kind of a weird combination. Sure, we're the second largest landmass for a country in the world and we hold oh, what is that? Between 30% of the fresh water on the globe. But, like China, we also have rare earth, minerals and a growing economy. And now, with our best friend literally beating the living shit out of us i.e. Donald Trump in the United States Canada needs to figure something out. Most of my life well, let's say all of my life up until now, Canada’s largest trading partner has been the United States, with over 85% of our trade dealing with the United States and the 15% being everywhere else in the world. Now, like I said in the intro, something I learned about 24 years ago I took a course when I started college called Canada and World Affairs, and I learned all about that. Sure, 24 years ago we had 85% of our trade with the United States. At that point in time, China was starting to allow capitalist ideology within their markets, same with Brazil In the amount of population they had. They changed to a society like ours. Within a decade they would explode and be a viable market for us. That would have been by 2011. And by 2011, they were right. Brazil was growing, China was growing, but Canada was not growing its market share in these countries. Now, with the United States being our main trading partner, being right next door to us, having this wide, open border that we could crisscross so easily, between the two of us, we were best friends. It was a great time. 

       Now, way back at the end of the World War II, we had our protectionist measures, because we all protected our nations. There were tariffs. There was the Auto Pact back in the early days, which stipulated that up to 20% of North American automobiles had to be either made, or had parts made, in the confines of the Commonwealth of Canada. Sure, we were a small market after World War II. What was Canada Like? 12, 14 million people? We're over 40 now. So, you think that's pittance compared to the United States, which was over 200 million people at that point in time. So why would they want to build anything here? Well, the auto pact, and with that we built the auto industry.
 
       As the Americans came in and slowly destroyed any of our home-bred auto manufacturers, with McLaughlin Buick being one of the last major ones to be taken out, becoming part of General Motors, we saw our own automotive market collapse. But the Americans were right here. They were building stuff in the confines of Canada. Why? Because it was an easier step to get their products into the other Commonwealth nations Want to sell them to the Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, south Africa or even Australia. You build it in Canada. It's not tariffed like if you ship it from the States. The Americans learned this.
 
         But now, with Trump putting all these protectionist measures on all of our stuff and adding, just this past week, an extra 10% on top of the tariffs he already has, just because he got pissed off about something that a previous Republican Party leader had stated about tariffs. He's like, literally, that kid in the sandbox where, if you don't let him play with your toys, he literally throws sand in your face. But how is China a viable product for us? Well, the Americans moving out of our nation. Ford pulling its plants to produce electric vehicles in Canada and pushing just extra production of their F-250s to their Oakville plant. Gm just shuttering the Kami plant that they built alongside of Suzuki way back in the 80s in Chrysler, or Stellantis, as it is now pulling the plug and building the brand-new compass at the Brampton facility. On top of that, Stellantis is solely pulling back from the massive battery plant that they have in Windsor. And Volkswagen, well, their deal for their massive plant in St Thomas is still there, but with all their products being made in the United States, there's still a slight possibility that it could disappear. Like I said, our government gave billions that's billions, with a B in tax incentives to get this industry to stay here, and now they're leaving to go back.
 
        But with China, what can we do? Everybody's scared about these low-cost electric vehicles from the Chinese marketplace and now they're starting to flood the European marketplace. Now they're heavily subsidized in their home nation. And if you actually read anything into this, Rivian just released a statement about that after buying into Xiaomi SU7, literally tearing the whole thing apart and stating the fact that there's not much different between them and Rivian. The one main thing that Xiaomi has over Rivian is that the government will build a plant for them to make their cars and give them massive subsidies to keep the price of their automobiles down. That's why you could buy something like a Xiaomi for $50,000 American, or an equivalent tesla model s will set you back over $80,000. They could build them cheaper thanks to their government and their economy is booming because of it.
 
       So how does that play in to Canada losing American production on our nation? Well, currently we have 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Now China has also put a reciprocal tariff on canola and agricultural products pork from Canada, so our farmers are hurting. Pull that back to the standard 10% that existed previously, when companies like BYD, FAW, Changan, GAC and even Geely were looking at manufacturing stuff in Canada. By dropping that, you can open up the floodgates to their products, making more competition available in a country of Canada. But if we're going to do this, we have to do it right. Okay, you can't just say, okay, we're getting rid of all the tariffs, we're going to let you in, and then they're just going to manufacture everything in China and ship it over here, kind of like they do with Temu, and they managed to get under that $800 package thing in the United States until a little while ago. Those are one of the few things that I actually did agree with, because by getting rid of that you're slowing the flow of those cheaply made objects into our nation. 

       With the automobile we can do the same thing. We can create a Chinese auto pack similar to we had in the 50s all the way up until NAFTA came out. Make it so that China has to manufacture a certain percentage of vehicles and parts in the confines of the Canadian playing field, and that means full production, no knockdown kits or anything else. You got to buy stuff from us to put into your cars in your country or you got to build the damn things here. Force them to set up design studios for parts production, and car companies Utilize good cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Thunder Bay and Moncton. New Brunswick if you didn't know this New Brunswick is one of the top automotive centers for the entire country of Canada barely builds any parts, doesn't build any more automobiles anymore ever since the fall of Bricklin, but their love affair with racing in the automobile industry is bigger than nearly anywhere else in the country.

​      So, they know cars and they know our country. You have a little bit of an Acadian aspect to it. So, by putting design studios in places like that Northern Ontario, the East Coast or even Alberta you get more of a Canadian aspect of it. By putting a design studio in Toronto, you're just going to get overflow from the American economy Because let's just put it right out there, southern Ontario is more of what Trump would like to call the 51st state, because they're a lot more associated with Americanized ideologies. Why do you think they watch the Buffalo Bills instead of watching the Argonauts and the Tigercats? Okay, Canadian football, American football, or, if you go out West, they're more likely to watch Canadian Football over American football. So, let's give it to an area that's predominantly known for Canadian ideology. Ensure proper investments into Canadian infrastructure, manufacturing plants, design studios, parts manufacturers, and on top of that, they have to get materials from us, which means this car companies now need to invest into our mining, our forestry, our agriculture. If you didn't know this.
 
          Magna International, or Magna Steyr as it's called in Europe, is headquartered in Aurora, Ontario. It's one of the biggest automotive part manufacturers in the world and it's Canadian. Yeah, it goes right up against companies like Dana. But Magna makes Porsches. Where do you think they get their leather for those Porsches? They don't get them from Scandinavian countries. You think they get a little bit closer to like Finland, where they build these vehicles? No, a lot of their leather actually comes from areas in Northern Ontario, outside of Massey, Ontario, there was a large tract of land that was sold to the Magna International Corporation for cattle. And why? Because of a colder climate made the hides Better for high-end automobiles. So, the use of agriculture you can use that Soybeans to build parts, cattle for your leather interiors. You got your minerals all over the place, especially in Northern Ontario, the territories in Northern Manitoba. There are tons of critical minerals that can be unlocked by investing and building production plants for these automobiles in not just places like Southern Ontario, like the East Coast of Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, because Winnipeg is actually one of the biggest production facilities in the entire country for transport and buses.
 
           If you didn't know that, I never knew it for the longest time, I always just thought it was a transportation hub. But that is it. It's a transportation hub, a transportation manufacturing hub. So, bid, you can build trucks out there. FAW, you can build trucks out there.
 
           Alberta with Design Studio Now wanting to get AI technology Xiaomi, you want to build your cars for consumption in Western civilization? Build a manufacturing plant in BC, have your Design Studio and technology in Alberta, who is one of the most heavily invested areas right now for AI data centers nearly $3 billion and, as of right now, they have enough projects on paper that they would need to double the entire power supply of the whole province for these centers. So, companies like Xiaomi and Huawei, who are big in the technology and want to build cars for Western consumption, Alberta is the place that would understand this. Saskatchewan loves to build stuff. They know mining Hell. It's one of the biggest places in the world for potash. You can utilize all of this to help build it.
 
        But what Canada also has to do is develop trade agreements with Central and South America and Europe. Europe is fighting to get all these Chinese manufacturing plants as well, but Canada has ties with European countries, how we're considered the long-lost sibling of the European Union. We tried to join up, but we probably won't get in. But we're still considered the long-lost sibling, especially the UK, so for us it's easier to get into those places. If you build in our country, you get all the stuff and you could ship those products over there. You can utilize the best of the European mixed with the best of Canadian. 

​          Canada has a massive automotive industry and if you've listened to some of our previous podcasts, one out of every eight jobs in the province of Ontario is tied to the auto industry. Nationwide that's almost double, but still. At one point in time Canada was the third largest automotive producing nation in the world. We're no longer in the top three, but we still break the top 10 for a country that doesn't even have its own car company. So, allowing the Chinese to come in and build their cars in our nation by removing these tariffs but adding an auto pack releasing ownership of those companies towards the government of Canada and Canadian investors. So, we still own a part of what's being built or supplied in our nation as well. We can bring this here without it even being part of our nation. When you're building your cars, ensure that 90% of the steel comes from Canada, and after you produce all these vehicles.
 
         Like we said, get free trade agreements. Canada and Mexico are working on their own. Canada and Brazil should be fighting it out as well, just like we are with the European Union, just like we're trying to the Asian nations. You could build it here and ship it to South America. With massive infrastructure projects being put out by Carney's liberal government right now in Canada and massive expansions heading for his first phase, the port of Montreal, and the second phase is going to be having the port of Churchill, Manitoba and the port of Vancouver. Hell, they want to push through expansion in other ports all across this nation to handle more products being shipped out, inclusive of our minerals. Create trade agreements between China and Canada. We give you the rare earth minerals. You build the products here. You could build the electronics on your side, ship them over to have a manufacturer in the cars that you sell here and ship to Central and South America because we got the agreements and eventually Canada can grow its automobile nation.
 
         The other part that can be stipulated into this is one that I've been fighting for a long time in the city of Sault Ste Marie. This is not the one I'm fighting about. I'm going to talk about it. Over a decade ago they developed a plant to break down rubber compound into its original source, recycling rubber tires. But also, a little company called Electric Battery if you go back, we did a podcast about it was called First Cobalt back in those days, but now its electric battery Wants to build a battery recycling facility where they break down batteries into the minerals. We could do that here. Those could be supplied for the cathodes, the electric batteries and that to go into these Chinese or manufactured products in our country and any leftover byproduct.
 
        We can seal a deal with China stating the fact that they get 20% rights of those minerals to ship back to their own country. Develop these deals. We could save so much. Set up a soft loop wood lumber. Allow them to get lumber from us and exchange for technology and automotive production. This can help spur massive growth. Put right placement, in fact, you can create more manufacturing to take place no further than three hours from the material mined, recycled or refined Used to spur growth outside of the GTA and St Lawrence area. These parts and everything can be used to benefit other areas of the country. But my biggest deal that we really need to make on top of these car companies being able to own portions of the mines where they get their minerals, which are produced Essentially, mined, milled and refined in the confines of the Canadian country and then manufactured into final products into the automobiles to help either boost production volumes that they need for the Chinese marketplace or for global marketplaces. We can help boost manufacturing mining agriculture in our country by allowing what's soon to be the world's largest economy they're fighting it out with the United States all the time. The US can fight it out constantly become the biggest market in the world, both the population in both India and China, well surpassing what's in the United States. When both of those markets start getting to the same point as ours, they're going to be massive. 

        India has protectionist measures where they try and get everything manufactured in their country. The reason why that a lot of Chinese manufacturers haven't entered the Indian marketplace is because they're like the United States you have to set up all these production facilities and you don't get anything else. Well, they want to put them there. But then a lot of these other countries in the world don't have deals with India, which means you manufacture it there. You manufacture it for their market, their market only. You can't ship it back to China because there's tariffs. You can't ship it to the European Union because there's tariffs.
 
       Canada, with a multitude of different free trade agreements to many different countries, can help spur growth for these Chinese companies by utilizing everything we have to offer the globe. We have oil, we have rare earth minerals, we have oil, we have rare earth minerals, we have textiles and we have a manufacturing base. We can give them every single thing which helps them open up their market share in Central America, in South America, the Caribbean Hell. We can help them be a jumping point for the African marketplace, even though a lot of them are a lot of protectionist measures as well. So, by adding this and adding a percentage that the Canadian government owns of those, we're ensuring that we're going to make money off of it. Even if it's not made here, we're still making a percentage off. Well, they're still making a percentage off of what we make here for them. Everybody is winning. But one of the greatest things we can utilize this for is to build our own automotive company.
 
         If you haven't noticed already, there are a lot of makes out there that utilize Chinese products for their own homegrown product, Wally’s Automotive. Chinese products Exceed Chinese products for European marketplaces. Sport Equip for Italy, Chinese products, DR Chinese product. There's a lot of them out there that utilize Chinese made product with their own logo and name on it. Well, if we all remember, that's how a lot of these out there that utilize Chinese-made product with their own logo and name on it. Well, if we all remember that's how a lot of these car companies got their start.
 
         China's automobile industry was created with partnerships from other major automotive corporations. We tell these companies like BYD, Geely and GAC the Canadian government will buy out the CAMI plant from General Motors. It's now part of ours. Fuck off GM. You can go back to your states literally just take your damn vans with you. We own it, but we lease it out to bid to build automobiles for other markets. So, we have our ownership in it, but along with that we use it to create our own brands. Back in the day of the CAMI plant, you had geo in the states, but in Canada we had Asuna. Now I don't want to bring back the Asuna name. We can create our own.
 
         And if you really want to bring your own Canadian-born car company by utilizing Chinese products for our home market, you can use one of two, one I'm putting it out there my own perfectly registered and owned automotive corporation name AeroDynamic Motor Vehicles Corporation or Aero Cars. Owned automotive corporation name AeroDynamic Motor Vehicles Corporation or Aero Cars. On top of that there's also a project if you've never heard of it in Canada called Project Arrow. Now, not to spell it, the same as mine, that's why I really didn't put up a fight about it. Project Arrow is a bunch of parts manufacturers from the province of Ontario that piece together their own automobile to showcase their technology and what we could build. They're looking for somebody that wants to build this. Tell these Chinese car companies they want to come into our marketplace. We'll get rid of the tariffs. We'll drop it all the way down to like 5% or 10%. You're still getting a little bit of tariff on it for vehicles that you ship over here. But if you manufacture in our country, you manufacture your products and you manufacture under our own plant.
 
           For Project Arrow or McLaughlin or Acadia or arrow cars, we create our own home-grown automobile corporation in partnership with a Chinese manufacturer. You have to remember the Chinese car companies are creating divisions galore. They're just like north America was at the beginning of the automobile age. Think about it. We did our podcast about the divisions of the big three. They're General Motors, just take a look at its Chevrolet Marquette, Oakland, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, LaSalle, a bunch of others in there too. Hell Chrysler Corporation, they had Plymouth, they had Dodge, they had Fargo, they had DeSoto, they had Chrysler and at one point in time they had the Imperial nameplate. They had a multitude of different divisions. So why can't we have our own dedicated Canadian one? The Americans did it when they were actually part of the auto pack building them here. We talked about that in previous podcasts. Companies like Acadian, companies like Montclair, companies like Asuna or a Canadian name on somebody else's vehicle.
 
       The only difference is, this time around, with something like Project Aero or, again using my name, aero Cars, we retain ownership rights of a minimum 35%, kind of like Volkswagen. Nobody can own over 30% of Volkswagen because the government owns a large percentage of it to ensure that Volkswagen stays in the confines of Germany because it is the people's car. We do that with our car company. See, even if this Chinese company ever wants to leave, they can leave, but anything we've developed or created together is still partnership rights with the Canadian manufacturer. We get our own car company out of the deal. Now they can write in and state the fact that they can't sell these things in China. Okay, whatever, we would love to expand your market, but you helped us build our own car company. 

​        Why do we need to? You know, go and fight you out. It's the same reason why General Motors basically stopped Magna International again from buying the Opel Vauxhall brand because they were going to build a manufacturing facility outside of Orillia, Ontario, to make Opel’s for the North American marketplace. General Motors said no, cut the deal short. They had to pay a fine, but they literally cut the deal short because they didn't want to create more competition in the North American marketplace. You know, kind of like how Ford won't build the Volkswagen Amarok for the North American marketplace because it doesn't want to build competition for itself, even though it did before with the Mazda B series. Like, seriously, fuck off, just give us the damn truck.
 
          So, partnering up with mining companies having Canadian ownership, having a Canadian brand, all these massive deals that Carney can actually take to China and state that we want to be partners. We don't want to fight anymore. We're tired of working with the cheese puff that lives below us. We literally want to work with you guys. Now, we still want to retain rights and we still have issues with some espionage, but that happens in all kinds of different nations. It's been happening south of the border as well. Eyes, now, we still want to retain rights and we still have issues with some espionage, but you know, that happens in all kinds of different nations. That's been happening south of the border as well. But we need to come to a common ground to try and utilize this point in time to get a stranglehold on this, because if that president ever gets forced out or, you know, in 2028 he actually does leave doesn't change the law to make it so he could stay forever, kind of like some of our prime ministers in this country Trudeau, yeah.
 
       But if they make a turn and they want to drop all their stuff and allow the Chinese to come to the marketplace, Canada already has all the manufacturing. It already has every single thing the Americans want. All we can say to them is fine, you want their cars, you can get a percentage of manufacturing of new plants, but the pre-existing plants, if you want them. We spearheaded a deal with China. We retain ownership rights. You can't take it away from us, basically telling them this is our trading partner now. If you want the products they have, you got to go through us. We basically make a fortress of Chinese automotive interest in Canada. Remember when the Americans finally opened their doors to it? They got to come knocking on our door to gain access to that fortress by playing our cards.
 
      Right now, and I'm talking like right now, not like two years from now, right now, in 2025, we're going to make a deal with them. We're going to make a deal with China, India, Brazil, south Korea, Australia and the European Union, because once they start cutting deals with the United States, we're just second fiddle. If we can cut the deals first, we're in there first, which means we hold the higher ground. It doesn't matter how much population you have; it just matters how many cards you hold in the tower. So, in the end, do we need an actual trade deal with China? Yes, and do we need an actual trade deal with China? Yes, Canada does desperately need one, because they have tons of products they want to manufacture on this side of the world and they've already proven that by building tons of stuff in Mexico, building a free trade agreement between Mexico and us. They can still build parts in Mexico and manufacture cars in here in Canada, or the other way around. We sell our parts to go into Chinese-made products in Mexico. We create the China-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement, or MCC. Or, if you really want to go old school, you could go like an old bicycle manufacturer in Canada. You can call it the CCM China-Canada-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, the CCM. Let's do it. Let's get off our asses and literally create this, because once the behemoth below us cuts their deal, nobody's going to care about ours. We're smaller than the rest, but in all reality, we can hold more playing cards than they can, and that is the benefit of a Canada versus China deal. 

​        So, if you like this podcast, please like, share or comment about it on any of the major social feeds or streaming sites that you found the AutoLooks podcast on. Like, share, comment, comment, do whatever you want. Hell, you want to send this to you know your government officials and tell them Hey, you know this guy's bad mouthing us. Oh, we better blacklist them. Go ahead and do that. Okay, seriously, like, just don't really care.
 
         Send out your friends, send it to your family, send it out to your co-workers, tell them about it and ask them maybe your home country. Maybe Mexico needs to make a better deal. Maybe you're from Brazil. You need to make a deal. Or maybe you're from one of our eastern population bases like Germany, Finland, Spain, Pakistan, India, south Africa. We all know you got listeners listening into this podcast from all those nations. Maybe you guys need to work a deal, just like ours that we're talking about. This can apply to any of your nations. You may not have as many cards as us, but find the card that's right and play it on the table, because right now the two largest economies battling it out and whoever wins on the winning table for the next century is going to have more cards in their deck than the one that doesn't make it go.
 
        And after that, stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all Car companies from around the globe, all available on one direct location. That is the AutoLooks.net Corporate Links website tab at the top of the page. At AutoLooks.net, the AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by PodBean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at AutoLooks.net. So, from myself, Everett Jay, the AutoLooks.net website, Ecomm Entertainment Group and PodBean.com, for getting us out on all those major streaming sites. Strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride that the AutoLooks podcast and this trade deal is going to take you on.

Everett J.
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