TORONTO (AP) — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada will match U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% auto tariffs with a tariff on vehicles imported from the United States.
Trump's previously announced 25% tariffs on auto imports took effect Thursday. The prime minister said he told Trump last week in a phone call that he would be retaliating for those tariffs.
"We take these measures reluctantly. And we take them in ways that is intended and will cause maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact in Canada,” Carney said.
Carney said Canada won't put tariffs on auto parts as Trump has done, because he said Canadians know the benefits of the integrated auto sector. The parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.
Carney said Canadians are already seeing the impact.
Automaker Stellantis said it shut down its assembly plant in Windsor, Canada, for two weeks from April 7, the local union said late Wednesday. The president of Unifor Local 444, James Stewart, said more scheduling changes were expected in coming weeks.
Carney said that will impact 3,600 auto workers that he met with last week.
Autos are Canada’s second-largest export and the sector employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries.
Carney announced last week a CA$2 billion ($1.4 billion) “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.
Trump previously placed 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum. And Carney said Canada can expects further tariffs on pharmaceuticals, lumber and semi-conductors.
“Given the prospective damage to their own people the American administration should eventually change course,” Carney said. “Although their policy will hurt American families, until that pain becomes impossible to ignore, I do not believe they will change direction, so the road to that point may indeed be long. And will be hard on Canadians just as it will be on other partners of the United States.”
Carney, a former two-time central banker in Canada and the U.K, said Trump’s actions will reverberate in Canada and across the world. “They are all unjustified and unwarranted and in our judgement misguided,” Carney said.
Canada’s initial $30 billion Canadian (US$21 billion) worth of retaliatory tariffs remain in place, having been applied on items like American orange juice, peanut butter, coffee, appliances, footwear, cosmetics, motorcycles and certain pulp and paper products.
Carney suspended his election campaign to return to Ottawa to deal with Trump's tariffs.
Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said he would remove the federal tax on Canadian made vehicles.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province has the bulk of Canada’s auto industry, called Canada’s latest tariffs a “measured response.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walks in before a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday April 3, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about tariffs during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday April 3, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) — Denny Hamlin took the lead coming out of the pits before a final overtime finish and held off William Byron to win the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday.
Hamlin won for a second straight week after his success at Martinsville and for the fifth time overall at Darlington, the most of any current driver.
Hamlin chose the outside lane for a final restart and shot out to the lead and pulled away from series points leader Byron and NASCAR wins leader Christopher Bell.
Hamlin looked like he'd have a strong finish, but not a winning one as Ryan Blaney passed Tyler Reddick for the lead with three laps left. But moments later, Kyle Larson spun out forcing a final caution and the extra laps.
It was then time for Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew to shine as it got him out quickly and in the lead.
Byron, who led the first 243 laps, was second with Hamlin's JGR teammate Bell in third.
“There are two people I really love right now, my pit crew and Kyle Larson,” Hamlin said to a round of boos from those in the stands.
Reddick was fourth and Blaney was fifth. The rest of the top 10 finishers were Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs and Kyle Busch.
Hamlin credited the past two victories to his pit crew.
“The pit crew just did an amazing job,” he said. “They won it last week, they won it this week. It's all about them.”
Blaney had thought he was clear to his first-ever Darlington victory after getting by Reddick late. When he saw the caution flag for Larson's spin, he said he thought, “Oh, no! I thought we had the race won."
So did Byron, who sought was to become the first NASCAR driver in nearly 25 years to lead every lap on the way to victory. He got shuffled down the standings during the last round of green-flag pit stops and could not recover.
“It was looking like it was going to be a perfect race and we were going to lead every lap,” he said.
But once “we lost control, it was too late to get back up there,” Byron said.
Kyle Larson, who won the Southern 500 here in 2023, had high hopes for a second Darlington win. But he slid into the inside wall coming off the second turn on lap three and went right to garage where his team worked the next couple of hours to get him back on track. Larson returned on lap 164 after falling 161 laps off the pace. Larson finished next to last in 37th.
Greg Biffle, the last NASCAR driver to win consecutive Cup Series victories at Darlington in 2006 and 2007, drove the pace car for the Goodyear 400 on Sunday. Biffle has had an eventful few months, flying rescue missions with his helicopter into areas of the Southeast affected by devastating Hurricane Helene in September.
Biffle was planning a weeklong trip to the Bahamas when his phone started going off about people stranded in parts of Western North Carolina.
“I went to the hangar and the power was out,” Biffle said. “We got the hangar down open with the tug and got the helicopter out. Once I got in the air, I realized what had taken place."
Biffle then flew the next 11 days from “sunup to sundown."
“It was incredible,” Biffle said. “It was pretty tough going for the first week.”
Biffle won the Myers Brothers Humanitarian Award for his work.
The series goes to Bristol on April 13 before taking its traditional Easter break.
AP NASCAR: https://apnews.com/hub/nascar-racing
Former driver Greg Biffle checks out the pace car before the start of a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Darlington Raceway, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Darlington, S.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)
Former driver Greg Biffle poses with the pace car before the start of a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Darlington Raceway, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Darlington, S.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)
NASCAR crew chief Matt Kelley walks out to pit road before the Goodyear 400, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Darlington, S.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)
Fans sign the start/finish line at before a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Darlington Raceway, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Darlington, S.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)
