Lower Thirds:

0:03	Report by Janelle Dumalaon

0:54	Jonathon Azzopardi, President of LAVAL Tool & Mould

1:55	Bruce Lane | President of Lanex Manufacturing

((info: As Donald Trump’s trade war intensifies, ties between tightly interwoven cross-border economies are being upended. Windsor, Ontario in Canada is often referred to as a suburb of Detroit, Michigan in the US  - it takes as little as 20 minutes to get from one to the other, and especially their automotive companies have become all part of the same ecosystem over many years. But as tariffs policies grow more aggressive in the US, Windsor companies are left to navigate a tangled web of costs and choices.))

Script: 

00:00:01:01
The Ambassador Bridge doesn’t just connect the US and Canada. 

Rather, it links one automotive capital: Detroit, Michigan to  another: Windsor, Ontario.

And their industries are tightly welded together. 

But Donald Trump’s new 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and certain car parts are aimed at getting more production within the US border…leaving Windsor and its more than 90 automotive companies and suppliers out in the cold.

00:00:28:02
+++SOT JONATHON AZZOPARDI, LAVAL TOOL+++
It feels like the death of somebody who's very close to us in the family, right? Because we are so intertwined.
+++

00:00:33:07
Jonathon Azzopardi is the president of Laval Tools, which builds tools and equipment to make car parts. It’s not yet completely clear how much auto suppliers and their suppliers in turn are going to feel the effects of the tariffs - as full details of the policy are still emerging. But pain is expected all along the supply chain.

00:00:51:23
+++SOT JONATHON AZZOPARDI, LAVAL TOOL+++
People will have to take drastic steps to be able to manage that, because nobody can swallow a 25% tariff. Not my clients, not me. Nobody can. ] And we will likely have to pivot into something that we aren't today. Right? A US entity establishing the United States, trying to figure out some way to fulfill those obligations on both sides of the border, because that's ultimately what President Trump wants.
+++++

00:01:20:24
And as companies in Windsor consider their options, it’s hard for them to ignore that even more tariffs could be on the horizon. There is the other 25 percent duty on most Canadian imports that the White House levied in March but delayed implementing.

Bruce Lane makes car parts that cross the border back and forth several times for treatment and processing along several stages of manufacturing, before eventually landing in finished cars. 

00:01:48:09
+++BRUCE LANE,  LANEX MANUFACTURING PRESIDENT+++
Our parts are on a large number of vehicles built. I call it the, uh, used to be called the big three, General Motors, Chrysler Ford. But now it's. I call it the Group of seven, because you got Hyundai in there and Honda and Toyota and Nissan, those 70 and maybe on on most all of them, we have 1 or 2 parts on the different vehicles that they make.
+++

00:02:11:23
But on-again, off-again tariff policies have made it difficult to plan his expenses - and to understand which tariff applies to what, whom, when and where.

00:02:21:16
+++BRUCE LANE,  LANEX MANUFACTURING PRESIDENT+++
I would say not everybody understands who bears what cost.
++++

00:02:25:07
He too, is considering a pivot - not by moving to the US, but by concentrating on a new product line to sell domestically  - modular steel frames for construction. 

He’s hoping a bet on business kept within Canada’s borders could eventually afford him some security long term.  

00:02:42:12
+++BRUCE LANE, LANEX MANUFACTURING PRESIDENT+++
I worry for my grandchildren's futures. Um, my children's futures. Um, I just worried that it's going to be a knock on the economy, and it can be a lot of people affected by it. //Everybody's going to be affected by it.
+++++

00:02:58:18
And it’s this question around the future that everyone has in Windsor, as they look across the river to their American neighbor - it’s about whether the economic ties will hold, or whether tariffs will tear them apart.