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# Why Michigan Has the Most to Lose in a U.S. - Canada Trade War
- URL: https://www.dailydetroit.com/why-michigan-has-the-most-to-lose-in-a-u-s-canada-trade-war/
- Published: 2026-08-24T20:17:18.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-24T20:17:18.000Z
- Description: Glenn Stevens, Executive Director of MichAUTO at the Detroit Regional Chamber joins us to talk about the (almost) deal and the implications of tariffs between the two countries
- Author: Jer Staes
- Tags: Podcast, Politics and Policy

The U.S.–Canada trade situation took a wild turn over the weekend. We thought we had an agreement, but now we’re suddenly facing a full-scale trade war with our closest neighbor. 

Glenn Stevens from MICHAuto joined me to break down what went wrong and what this uncertainty actually means on the ground for Michiganders and Michigan companies. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/47/f5/47f528d4-7214-4519-b2b2-26249e48460d/content/images/2026/08/PXL_20260824_164155224.jpg)

Glenn Stevens (right) at the Daily Detroit studio. 📸 Luciano Marcon

From auto supply chains, to materials, to local jobs, to healthcare workers and tourism, Michigan has more to lose than most anywhere else in the United States as this may drag on. 

Michigan residents have already been impacted by thousands of dollars since the disputes started in 2025, whether it's in increased prices or decreased wages and profit-sharing.

We dig into why unraveling this more than century-long economic partnership makes little sense and why getting both sides back to the table. That yes, friends always have disagreements, but blowing everything up isn't the thing to do.

You'll find a full transcript below.

Give it a listen, and let me know how these potential tariffs are impacting your work or family across the border. 

Email us at dailydetroit - at - gmail - dot - com or leave a voicemail, 313-789-3211.

---

## Transcript

*This has been lightly edited for web posting. Please be sure to refer to the original audio before quoting.* 

**Jer Staes:** Hello friends and welcome to your Daily Detroit for Monday, August 24th, 2026\. I am Jer Staes coming to you from our studio at TechTown. Normally, I don't put a timestamp on these things, but because everything is moving very quickly, I want to mention that we are recording this episode at about 12:45 in the afternoon. Joining me to do it is none other than Glenn Stevens, Executive Director of MICHAuto at the Detroit Regional Chamber. We are going to be talking about all of this tariff situation, which—Glenn, first off, welcome back to the show, but second, what on earth is happening?

**Glenn Stevens:** Great to be here, Jer, on a very tumultuous day in the Canada-U.S. relationship. We thought we had a deal last Friday. In fact, all signals developed to the point where the Canadian Prime Minister asked each of the premiers to put American liquor back on the shelves. That is how far it had developed in a positive way. Then something happened Friday night, and we woke up Saturday morning to find the thing had blown up. We are pretty much in a full-scale trade war at this point on a Monday morning.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/47/f5/47f528d4-7214-4519-b2b2-26249e48460d/content/images/2026/08/PXL_20260824_164432460.jpg)

Glenn Stevens, MICHAuto 📸 Luciano Marcon

**Jer Staes:** It feels like this is so disconcerting because we have kind of been here before. It went out of the news, but a lot of things changed, and now we are back here again with so much uncertainty. What I do know—what Jer does know—is that all of this has increased prices on Michiganders especially and also hurt Michigan jobs.

**Glenn Stevens:** Right, and that is because our two countries are intertwined from a trade perspective. Michigan and Ontario—and other parts of Canada, but certainly Ontario—are interdependent. Parts move back and forth daily for the auto industry, but also agriculture, lumber, energy, fertilizer products... it is all traded back and forth. That's $70 billion between Ontario, Canada, and Michigan every year. This is a very difficult situation because it was not that long ago that we had free trade with Canada, about a year and a half ago. Now all kinds of tariffs have layered up. We have been trading for 300 years with that province next to us—before it was a country, before we were a country—and certainly in the automotive industry, we have been trading with them for 125-plus years.

**Jer:** So what led us up to this situation this time?

**Glenn:** There are a lot of things going on. There has been a stacking of tariffs through different mechanisms by the administration: steel and aluminum early on, and other policies and trade acts have been used. A lot of it was reversed by the Supreme Court in the spring. We anticipated more tariffs being put in place, and that is what happened about a month ago. The Trump administration used an act from the 1930s that has never been used before, called the Smoot-Hawley Act, to place a 50% tariff on about $20 billion of new Canadian goods. That is what they were really trying to iron out last week to avert this new tariff taking place, and it all leads up to the USMCA, too. It all ties together, but there are separate things going on.

**Jer:** Now forgive me, I did take some economics classes, and I don't remember my teacher talking fondly about Smoot-Hawley as a concept.

**Glenn:** No. As I noted a minute ago, it has not been used, and if it were an effective tool that could stand the test of time legally, it would have been deployed more. It is already being challenged by businesses that are impacted by it. But it is at the crux of what has transpired in the past week and what broke down on Friday. That was one step being negotiated, but since it broke down, the Canadians walked away from the table. They have threatened to retaliate on September 8th with their own tariffs, and today, President Trump threatened to raise tariffs that are already in place. It is not de-escalating; it is going in the opposite direction.

**Jer:** It seemed like there was a deal in place, but I have read multiple reports now that near the end of the negotiating cycle, there were a number of requests by the Trump administration especially around cultural issues that were unrelated specifically to the auto trade. Things like demanding that Canadians stop some of their investment in their own arts, culture, film, and streaming services—a number of things that seemed not connected to what was originally talked about.

**Glenn:** None of it is fully substantiated, but Prime Minister Carney referred to it. He is pretty sharp, he has been through this, and he is not going to speak out about something that did not happen. There were certainly some cultural questions by our administration, there were automotive changes to tariffs, and I am sure there were things on both sides. But again, last week they stood together—Ambassador Greer and Trade Commissioner LeBlanc from Canada—and said, "We have a deal." Now we don't. In fact, as I said, we are going in the opposite direction.

**Jer:** How does this uncertainty impact us? We don't know what is actually going to happen as we record this. There are timelines in the future, loud talking right now, heightened percentages, and the theoretical possibility that Canada could put export taxes on things like fuel that we are very dependent on. What does this uncertainty mean on the ground for us here in Michigan and for Michigan companies?

**Glenn:** Let's stack it up. First of all, from a business perspective, whether it is a small business impacted by tariffs or a large multinational like an OEM automotive company, they are faced with overall general uncertainty. Pulling a lever on a major investment or moving production is not something you are going to do in an unstable environment with that huge uncertainty out there. Secondly, input costs have gone up. Tariffs are taxes; somebody has to pay them. The importer of record, the company bringing that product into a country wherever it comes from, is going to pay a tax on that. A company can do one of two things: absorb that cost or pass it along to the consumer. Input costs are up, and the consumer is feeling it. Ultimately, that could lead a company to decide, "I can't make a go of this," or "I have to cut back." Those are jobs. It is a cascade effect that has really not had much positive outcome at this point.

**Jer:** There are even disagreements among friends often, right? It is not like there haven't been negotiations between the United States and Canada in the past. But when it comes to this specific situation, I feel like there could be longer-term implications if we don't figure out a way to handle this. This posture worries me because the automotive business is a global market. What I worry about is, as a country, if we do things in a way that is perceived as unreliable, our longtime allies might look for other friends. If we pull out of Canada, there are still a lot of plants left there. What if another automaker from China or somewhere else says, "Hey, we'll employ your people, you just have to sell the cars we build there in Canada." Our automakers could lose market share and profits, ultimately costing jobs here in Michigan as well because this is all tied together. It feels to me like a lot of this conversation pretends we are in a different decade than we are.

**Glenn:** There is a lot to unpack there. First of all, our countries and our companies here are intertwined, particularly in automotive. You have trucks built in Ontario by Ford and GM where the transmissions come from Ohio, the axles come from Michigan, and the engines come from Windsor. It is a very connected supply chain. If we don't have that in Canada, or if those plants become another type of company, like a Chinese company, there is no windfall for us there. The Canadian market is substantial. It is nowhere near our market, but it is substantial. They are trade partners in automotive design, engineering, and assembly. So, yes, there are longer-term ramifications. We know why the administration did what it did. From January 20th, 2025, when the America First Trade Policy Act came out, the intent was clear: secure the borders, reduce the trade deficit as much as possible, and reindustrialize while building national security. No one would argue with those fundamental goals. It has just been way too bumpy along the way, and now it is not being done together. We should be doing things together. Canada has access to critical minerals among their natural resources that we need. If they walk away from that, we are isolated from it, too.

**Jer:** In theory, given enough time and investment, could the United States backfill all these gaps over time? Do we have the talent, the people? Is that a reasonable ask?

**Glenn:** The ambitious goals for reindustrialization would be really difficult to achieve because of talent constraints. You have to have talent, and we need immigration reform. We needed it before the current administration and certainly the one before. We need people. We are not a high growth-rate country, and Michigan is not a high birth-rate or growth state either. There are constraints on people and capital to literally do as much as you would like to do. Certainly, we can grow and expand manufacturing here, but we need trade partners like Canada and Mexico as a trade block to compete, do business, and move components across sectors together.

**Jer:** There is a term I have heard: "Fortress America." How does that impact our automakers? Does it impact them positively or negatively? What does it change for them in what seems to be a global market for cars?

**Glenn:** It depends on the company. Remember, it is not just GM, Ford, and Stellantis. There are a lot of other companies building vehicles here: Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Rivian, and Tesla. It impacts them as well. Could we build and increase capacity here? Yes. In fact, we have seen some moves. We have seen product brought back from Mexico, and Ford has indicated they are going to bring some vehicles back from China. We have the capacity to do that, and those are wins. But what we are talking about today is that relationship with Canada where cross-border vehicles and components move back and forth in a supply chain that has worked tariff-free for 125-plus years. That is at jeopardy, and unraveling that does not make sense.

**Jer:** What are you looking for from your seat? What would you like to see happen going forward, and what should listeners be thinking about?

**Glenn:** I would like to see some of the goals set forth by the administration when it took office—to grow manufacturing in this country, but also R&D, research, and engineering. That is what we need in Michigan for growth. But we want to do it with Canada, not at the expense of Canada. We see ourselves as a trade block that is stronger together with Canada and Mexico. A strong USMCA agreement can work for all of us and help us compete on a global stage against regions like China.

**Jer:** What are we looking for next? Is it a waiting game? From your perspective at MICHAuto, what are you and the people you work with thinking about right now?

**Glenn:** We hope they get back to the table. That flat out is the number one objective: for them to get back to the table, hammer this out, iron these things out, and take that step toward negotiating a stronger USMCA. That is the path we were on, and that is the path we need to get back on. Yes, we are communicating with Lansing and our federal delegation. But this happened over a weekend and blew up rather quickly because a deal was in place. The President posted about it, the trade commissioner stood together, and liquor was going back on the shelves in Canada...

**Jer:** Really?

**Glenn:** Prime Minister Carney asked them to make that decision on Thursday—each province makes that decision on its own across the 13 provinces and territories—and here we are in a completely different place.

**Jer:** Wow. It is interesting because I think about state liquor laws and how many things are similar between the two of us. For me personally, I find it difficult because I know so many family members, friends, and listeners of the show who are across borders. Their families are across borders, and there are marriages across borders. We just opened that beautiful Gordie Howe International Bridge.

**Glenn:** We did.

**Jer:** Personally, it feels so nonsensical to be in this place. Following this over the weekend—and I am really glad you made the time to come out, Glenn—it is almost disorienting.

**Glenn:** It is discouraging because those are not just our trade partners across the river; those are our friends and neighbors. There are thousands of healthcare workers who come across from Windsor every day to work in our hospital systems. We play sports against each other and share mutual entertainment districts. I grew up playing hockey in the UP, went to hockey school in Toronto every year, and played a lot of Ontario hockey. I have friends and relatives there. For us, it is very personal. We are much closer to the action here than people in D.C. or other parts of the country because of the relationships and friendships we have built over so many years.

**Jer:** I read that Michigan and Maine are the two states that would be most impacted, alongside others like Wisconsin, but Michigan and Maine are really in the crosshairs of all this.

**Glenn:** There is $900 billion of trade done between the U.S. and Canada every year, and $70 billion of that is between Michigan and Canada. It is an outsized impact. We have four bridges now and two tunnels, and they work every day to move commerce, people, tourism, trade, and travel. By the way, travel has been hurt, too.

**Jer:** I think I saw a statistic that travel was down about 27%?

**Glenn:** Having just served on the Travel Commission for four years, that has been a huge topic. We just haven't seen our friends and neighbors here as much as we should. I can't blame them. They are angry right now, very frustrated, and very unified.

**Jer:** For people listening who are not from Michigan or not as familiar with the region, literally we could take a bus down to the riverfront and chuck a baseball across the river. We are so close. For the rest of the country that doesn't know how integrated we are—sure, we fought a war in 1812! But outside of that, trade, tourism, and development are all interdependent. Think about Canadian lumber—resources and specific types of timber that we don't harvest as much here in the U.S. Why can't it be America and Canada together? I understand using tariffs in certain places, but the way this has rolled out has just been befuddling to me.

**Glenn:** I can feel that from you, and I think you can feel it from me. We are perplexed, but it is also personal to us right across that border. Think of how many people walked or biked across the new bridge in the last couple of weeks. People are enjoying both sides. We have people biking across from Canada to visit restaurants in Southwest Detroit. That is a beautiful thing, and we want more of that. But when countries are at odds from a leadership perspective, it filters down. From a business standpoint, input costs are up, affecting employment and prices. But for us, it remains deeply personal because it involves our friends and neighbors just across the river.

**Jer:** My thought is to not underestimate the pushback Canadians can offer, even if their economy is smaller. When a group feels threatened—I keep hearing the hockey term "elbows up"—people will deal with a lot of inconvenience and difficulty if they feel they are being wronged.

**Glenn:** They do feel like they are being wronged. But I will underscore that it goes both ways; there are trade issues we want worked out from our perspective, too. I read last night that Canadians may be willing to wait the administration out until it is out of office. That is hard to fathom because the economic pain to their economy would be severe, as it is not humming along great right now. As you mentioned earlier, it could force them to seek other trade partners. That doesn't do us any good, and while it might help them long-term, it is a long road to get there. The best outcome is a trading agreement that works well for both sides to increase investment on both sides of the border.

**Jer:** There are absolutely important things that need to be discussed, and it seemed like progress was being made. Friends often have disagreements, and that is okay. It is when disagreements turn people into enemies—and I don't think we are enemies—that a trade war feels wrong.

**Glenn:** I am optimistic by nature that they will get back to the table and hammer it out. At the same time, it is causing a lot of angst and divisiveness. A little over a year and a half ago, we had free trade, products moving back and forth, and joint investment talks. Now we are using two words with Canada, our closest trading partner, that I never thought I would hear: "trade war." That is hard to wrap your head around.

**Jer:** If listeners have questions, let me know: dailydetroit@gmail.com or 313-789-3211\. If you have family on either side of the border or work across the border and this concerns you, I want to hear about it. Glenn Stevens, Executive Director of MICHAuto at the Detroit Regional Chamber, thank you so much. It is good to see you, and hopefully next time under better circumstances.

**Glenn:** I hope so too, Jer. It is always good to be with you. I love your show, and keep up the great work.