U.S. President Donald Trump following through on his threats and imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum exports on Wednesday.
A move Unifor says will cause serious damage to industry and workers in both countries.
Canada hit back following a dollar-for-dollar approach, levelling retaliatory reciprocal tariffs on the United States, worth $29.8 billion.
Speaking on AM800's The Dan MacDonald Show, Unifor National President Lana Payne says Trump is knowingly inflicting damage to the North American manufacturing sector that will injure workers, eliminate jobs, and hurt consumers.
She says Canadian auto jobs are not Trump's to take or steal.
"We have had an automobile industry in Canada for well over a hundred years, and the reason we do is because Canadians buy vehicles, and as a result, we should have a footprint in this country," she said. "Canadians buy about two million vehicles a year, we don't make that many vehicles. It's a message to our own government to say how we can make sure that we're doing even more manufacturing in Canada."
She says the United States would gain many assembly plants if they looked at the real issue.
"It's not Canada, it's the fact that they import three and a half million vehicles from other parts of the world, and are not even looking at this as a way to increase their manufacturing footprint, and that is where I believe the focus needs to be," Payne said.
Payne said companies thinking of shifting production to appease Trump need to know the union will do anything it takes to protect Canadian jobs.
"Companies ought to be aware of the mood of Canadians right now when it comes to any action that they may be considering, and of course we will do whatever we have to do to defend the 40,000 jobs that we have in our union, workers employed in auto and auto assembly," she said.)
Trump also continued his threat on imposing tariffs on vehicles entering the U.S. on April, a move that Payne says would "essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada."
