News is moving quickly on the Trump administration’s trade wars. As you drill down into the details of each plot twist, it can be helpful to keep in mind the big picture. In other words, to see both the forest and the trees. Here are five major themes that may be worth paying attention to.
1. Tariff reactions could be categorized by grief stages
I have noticed an evolution in the tone of discussions about Trump’s tariffs — particularly in the automotive media. That has led me to categorize takes according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief, which include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance (Wikipedia, 2025).
After Trump won election a goodly number of perspectives appeared to be colored by denial, such as with the assumption that Trump wouldn’t actually go through with the tariffs, but was merely trying to bring parties to the negotiation table (Hollmer and Howe, 2025).
More recently I have seen more takes that are grounded in bargaining. A typical example would be those who have assumed that the tariffs wouldn’t last very long, perhaps because cooler heads in the Trump administration would prevail. Or that the specific conditions of the tariff rules could be negotiated (Hodder, 2025).
In the last week or so I have seen more anger, although it has come more from analysts rather than auto executives trying to avoid Trump’s wrath (Irwin, 2025).
As a case in point, take a look at the CBC News segment that analyzed Trump’s tariffs from Canadian perspectives. How many different stages of grief do you see?
2. Industry needs more consistency than promised
When Trump insists that his newly imposed tariffs are permanent, at best he can only speak to the length of his term in office. In addition, the U.S. constitution does not give presidents unfettered control of tariff policies (Manuk, 2024; Krugman, 2025). This means the Democrats could plausibly rein in Trump if they won back Congress in the 2026 mid-term elections.
These basic facts of American political life have not been lost on the private sector, whose leaders may need to consider longer time horizons when making supply-chain decisions (Isidore and Yurkevich, 2025).
“We make decisions around aluminum production that have a horizon of 20 to 40 years,” Alcoa CEO Bill Oplinger said last month. “We would not be making an investment in the United States based on a tariff structure that could be in place for a much shorter period of time” (Egan, 2025).
Of course, other manufacturers relevant to the auto industry may have shorter time horizons, but the punchline is the same: Trump faces an uphill battle to rewire a global industry enough to bring a significant number of jobs back to the U.S.
“The sort of reindustrialization that’s being talked about isn’t the product of months or years,” economist Joe Brusuelas told CNN. “It’s the product of decades” (Egan, 2025).
3. Trump has limited leverage to punish automakers
Trump reportedly warned auto executives that he would retaliate if they raised prices in response to his tariffs (Hampton, 2025). It’s unclear what specific actions Trump might take, but I have yet to come across an auto industry analyst who has not predicted that his tariffs could lead to at least some price increases.
As a case in point, John Murphy, a research analyst at Bank of America Securities, told Automotive News, “We don’t expect consumers would absorb the price increase in full. Importing OEMs are more likely to sell vehicles at breakeven until they rebalance the production footprint, and we estimate the resultant price increase would still be meaningful at $4.5k. The higher pricing umbrella could be positive for lesser impacted OEMs such as Ford, as it could enable them to raise price and/or gain share” (Hodder, 2025).
It makes sense that automotive executives would not want to raise Trump’s ire, but there are constitutional limits to the actions he can unilaterally take against automakers. President Harry Truman found that out when the Supreme Court invalidated his seizure of the steel industry in 1952.
Joshua Waimberg (2015) of the National Constitution Center summed up the court’s decision: “The President’s power, if any, to issue the order must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.”
The current court may be more conservative — and includes three Trump appointees — but that has not resulted in rulings which have been uniformly favorable to Trump (Hurley, 2024).
4. Trading alliances may be fundamentally altered
The biggest long-term change that could result from Trump’s tariffs may be the fundamental altering of long-time trading relationships. A case in point is Canada, where Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that the “old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over” (Henley, 2025).
Carney’s call for a broad reevaluation of Canada’s relationship with the U.S. has also been influenced by Trump’s talk of annexing the country and questioning of long-time defense agreements. This has led the Canadian government to look at building stronger relationships with other nations.
Over time that could play out in numerous ways, such as by cancelling the purchase of the F-35 stealth fighter from the U.S. in favor of aircraft from elsewhere (Brewster, 2025). Some have even called for Canada to join the European Union (Dawson, 2025). Carney has fueled such talk by describing Canada as “the most European of non-European countries” (Ray, 2025).
What Canada ends up doing could partly depend on who wins an upcoming national election, but political observers suggest that there is widespread public support for turning away from the U.S. “Two-thirds of Canadians said they’d significantly reduced their purchases of American products in stores (68%) and online (65%), and 59% said they’re less likely to visit the U.S. this year than in 2024,” according to a recent survey (Baskas, 2025).
Perhaps relations may improve under a new American president, but the policy shifts Carney is making right now may not be fully reversible.
5. Tariffs have become a wedge issue within labor
Trump’s attacks against “free trade” may have helped him win the 2024 election — and it could continue to drive a wedge within the labor movement.
That can be seen in the United Auto Workers endorsement of Trump’s tariffs as well as Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D) calling them “a good first step” (Barrow and Groves, 2025). In contrast, Canada’s auto-worker union, Unifor, would instead like to see issues addressed as part of a review of the USMCA — the trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico that Trump had negotiated when he was last president (go here for further discussion).
Unifor National President Lana Payne said that she agreed with the UAW that previous trade agreements did not do enough to to improve living standards for workers. “But the reality is, that trade will still happen. So how do we make sure that that works for working people?” (Loop, 2025).
UAW President Shawn Fain has tried to paper over his union’s split with Unifor by saying that the two organizations maintain a good relationship. “At the end of the day, there’s plenty of work to go around for all of us,” Fain said. “This is all about holding these companies accountable and making them accountable to working-class people” (Martinez, 2025).
Left unexplained by Fain is why Trump’s tariffs won’t just take jobs away from Canadians and give them to Americans (go here for further discussion).
Meanwhile, Fain said that he was not going to oppose Trump’s tariffs just “because he’s a Republican.” The UAW president added, “That’s not how we do things. It’s having integrity.”
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RE:SOURCES
- Barrow, Bill and Stephen Groves; 2025. “How this auto union leader’s support for Trump’s tariffs scrambled labor politics again.” ABC27 News. Posted March 27.
- Baskas, Harriet; 2025. “More Canadians avoid setting foot in the U.S., ‘without even a connection or layover.'” NBC News. Posted March 17.
- Brewster, Murray; 2025. “Canada reconsidering F-35 purchase amid tensions with Washington, says minister.” CBC News. Posted March 14.
- Dawson, Tyler; 2025. “Here’s what would happen if Canada joined the European Union.” The National Post. Posted Feb. 10.
- Egan, Matt; 2025. “Trump’s tariff problem: He might need a third or fourth term for his plan to work.” CNN Business. Posted March 18.
- Hampton, Daniel; 2025. “Trump warned auto execs not to hike prices ahead of his ‘great’ 25% tariffs: report.” Raw Story. Posted March 27.
- Henley, Jon; 2025. “End of an era for Canada-US ties, says Carney, as allies worldwide decry Trump’s car tariffs.” The Guardian. Posted March 27.
- Hodder, Riley; 2025. “Here’s what the auto industry is saying about the effects of Trump’s tariffs.” Automotive News. Posted March 28.
- Hollmer, Mark and Gail Kachaourian Howe; 2025. “Trump tariffs: Dealers confused but resilient in face of new reality.” Automotive News. Posted March 27.
- Hurley, Lawrence; 2024. “Trump has shaped the Supreme Court, but it could still hinder his agenda.” NBC News. Posted Nov. 9.
- Irwin, John; 2025. “Trump announces 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts.” Automotive News. Posted March 26.
- Isidore, Chris and Vanesa Yurkevich; 2025. “Automakers aren’t rushing to move production to US factories to avoid tariffs.” CNN Business. Posted March 27.
- Krugman, Paul; 2025. “Of Tariffs and Totalitarianism.” Posted March 28.
- Loop, Emma; 2025. “Why America’s biggest auto union supports Trump’s tariffs — and Canada’s does not.” CBC News. Posted March 18.
- Martinez, Michael; 2025. “Why UAW President Shawn Fain doesn’t buy industry’s tariff fears, predicts more jobs.” Automotive News. Posted March 28.
- Manuk, Inu; 2024. “Tariffs are coming, but Congress can stop them.” The Hill. Posted Nov. 20, 2024.
- Ray, Siladitya; 2025. “Trump Threatens More Tariffs If EU Works With Canada To Cause ‘Economic Harm’ To US.” Forbes. Posted March 27.
- Waimberg, Joshua; 2015. “Youngstown Steel: The Supreme Court stands up to the President.” National Constitution Center. Posted Nov. 16.
- Wikipedia, 2025. “Five stages of grief.” Page last modified March 3.
The biggest market for EU cars is…the UK. US is second. High end luxury car sales are hardly going to be hit. High worth individuals are not going to buy a Cadillac instead of a Bentley. And they aren’t going to be seen in a Tesla which is bearing the brunt of the world’s reaction. The real winner is the Chinese car industry, already in the lead in EVs and low cost manufacturing. Unintended consequences are the order of the day.