January 16, 2026 - Trade Deal Will Bring Chinese EVs to Canada

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for January 16, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

As expected, the Trump administration's policies of the past year, including applying massive tariffs on almost all of the U.S. major trading partners and rolling back any and all environmental policies, are starting to have an impact. Ultimately, these policies are going to isolate the U.S. economy from the rest of the world, and if American companies take full advantage of these changes, they will become both unwanted and uncompetitive outside U.S. borders. 

Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have all taken huge write-downs on the hundreds of billions of dollars they've invested in electrification in recent years. Stellantis, in particular, is rapidly reverting to its Fiat Chrysler era strategies of downplaying electrification. Since the return of Tim Kuniskis as head of North American brands, EV programs have been delayed or cancelled, plug-in hybrids have been discontinued, and there is a mad rush to reintroduce Hemi and Hellcat V8s to as many platforms as possible. 

Meanwhile, with U.S. automakers relocating production from Canadian plants to those in the U.S. and threats from Trump to make Canada the 51st state, Prime Minister Mark Carney is responding as expected. With the U.S. no longer seen as a friend, Carney this week struck a trade deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The deal will see China lower tariffs on Canadian canola oil and other products, while Canada will allow tens of thousands of lower-cost Chinese electric vehicles into the country. This will very likely be the first step in a process of Chinese automakers supplanting those based in Detroit from the Canadian market. It's likely only a matter of time before one of the major Chinese automakers builds a new assembly plant or takes over one that's been abandoned, like the Stellantis plant in Brampton, Ontario. That plant was slated to produce a new generation of the Jeep Compass last year, but Stellantis paused the retooling when Trump introduced tariffs, and the vehicle will now be built in Illinois in 2027. 

With low-cost Chinese-branded EVs to the north and south of the U.S., the Detroit automakers may face a bleak future if they have to rely exclusively on their home market. 

Thanks for listening.