Welcome back to This Week in Canada, where one freight train delivers the end of an era, the death penalty is not so dead to Canadians anymore, and Air Canada finally solves its French-language problem. Let’s get to it!
Last week in San Diego, I noticed a long freight train that looked like it was making its way north toward major rail hubs in Los Angeles. From there, the freight probably headed to destinations across the United States and into Canada.
One railcar carried the slogan “Union Pacific Building America.” Others bore the names Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Railway, and CN, all giant companies that knit together supply chains across North America, hauling everything from auto parts and oil to grain and finished goods.
They were painted with graffiti, and those railcars struck me as the perfect symbol of the world’s most integrated trading relationship. For nearly four decades, Canada and the U.S. have steadily built what is, in many ways, a single economy. Goods cross the border so often that manufacturers barely think about where one country ends and the other begins.
Watching the train slowly roll by, I wondered if I were looking at the high-water mark of that economic integration. A flurry of recent headlines suggests that I might have been.
Toyota announced on July 6 that it will spend $3.6 billion to expand its San Antonio, Texas, manufacturing facility, adding a second vehicle assembly line and 2,000 jobs. The Japanese company said it remains committed to Canada, which has three Toyota plants, and to Mexico. But its next big bet is in America.
President Donald Trump hailed the announcement as proof that his tariffs are working. “They’re moving into the United States. . . because if you build your product here, you pay no tariff,” he said. Trump also predicted that Toyota’s growing facility in San Antonio would become the largest car plant in the world.
