https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
There are roughly 1,700 companies shaping aluminum into components or finished products in Quebec, cranking out everything you can think of with the malleable metal – from ambulance doors to window frames. Half of them are based in the greater Montreal area. And all of them have one major problem at the moment: Donald Trump.
Industry groups have been warning for weeks of the pain to come from the U.S. President’s 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, which came into effect March 12. But on the factory floors of Quebec’s aluminum-product makers, and in the hallways and offices of manufacturers where net profit margins are typically in the single digits and payrolls rarely tally more than 200 employees, those warnings have become reality.
The sector is in early-stage distress. “These are businesses that were operating well, that were in expansion mode,” said François Racine, president of industry lobby group AluQuébec. Now, they find themselves penalized against American rivals who make mostly the same things they do. “This is going to hurt us badly,” he said.
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