FILE - President Joe Biden drives a Cadillac Lyriq through the show room during a tour at the Detroit Auto Show, Sept. 14, 2022, in Detroit. Wolfgang Alschner is associate professor at the common law section of the University of Ottawa. He holds the Hyman Soloway Chair in Business and Trade Law. The tariffs target strategic sectors from steel and aluminum to green tech. Headline-grabbing among those were the 100-per-cent levies on Chinese electric vehicles.
But Canada may be a beneficiary of recent developments, too. At least in the short term, it can freeride on U.S. protectionism as well as Chinese subsidies. Companies setting up EV manufacturing here ultimately produce for the much bigger North American market. Manufacturers located in Canada benefit from U.S. protectionism that gears buyers to EVs made in the integrated supply chain that stretches from Mexico to Canada.