A local car dealership says the impact of tariffs on aluminum and steel will be minimal for them as the country grapples with U.S. President Donald Trump’s new executive order.
Andrew MacPhee, Dealer Principal at MacPhee Ford in Dartmouth, tells our newsroom at a local level there is not much they can do about the 25 per cent tax, except adapt if necessary.
“It’s not like I can hang up my franchise or say I’m not going to take anymore new vehicles. This is what I do. We do have other outlets for us. I can be dependent on my used vehicle department. I can continue to work on my service and parts department that is very local, and it would be less affected.”
MacPhee says although his dealership gets vehicles from Ford of Canada who buys them from the United States, southern Quebec will be impacted the most and it would likely take a while before the effects of that would trickle down.
Trump announced Monday evening, that he is putting 25 per cent tariffs on any aluminum and steel entering the United States.
The move comes just one week after Trump put a 30-day pause on tariffs that would affect Canadian exports into the U.S.
How much will prices jump?
MacPhee says he is not entirely sure how much the cost of a new vehicle would rise with the tariffs in place, but it might be somewhere around 2 to 4 per cent.
This is because vehicles are made up of more materials than just aluminum and steel.
“The components are like modules and upholstery and nuts and bolts and wiring and bumpers and wiring. What makes up inside those modules and all that infrastructure, may or may not be affected by this.”
When asked if he is concerned about the number of new vehicles they would sell with the higher cost, MacPhee says, “nothing that my concern can change.”
“My goodness gracious, that stuff keeps an auto dealer up at night. Yes, it does. But…you just can’t change it.”
MacPhee adds, every manufacturer is in the same boat.
“Ford would have to increase the price of the vehicle that they sell to dealers. Whether that dealer is in Louisiana or Nova Scotia the price is going to have to go up. If it’s manufactured in the United States, it just became more expensive.”
What if Canada retaliates…
At this point, Canada has not put tariffs in place in retaliation, but political officials have not taken the idea off the table.
However, MacPhee says, if we do put our own tariffs on aluminum and steel, even though prices would hike even more, he still doesn’t see it resulting in any job losses at his dealership.
“At a retail level, we’ll just figure it out. That’s just what we do. We’ll sell more used cars than new cars in the interim and we’ll sell more that people won’t trade, so we’ll have to fix it. It’s exactly what happened during COVID. People kept their cars longer. We just found a way to pay the bills.”
Tariffs are set to go into effect, March 12.
