A blockade at the busiest border crossing between the United States and Canada by truck drivers protesting corona rules is beginning to have an economic impact on the North American auto industry. Automakers Ford and Toyota are scaling back production due to the action, which largely closed the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor in Canada on Wednesday for the third day to traffic to Canada.
Ford said it is closing an engine plant in Windsor due to a lack of parts due to the blockade, which is part of Canadian truckers’ protest against ongoing corona restrictions that also controls the capital Ottawa. The company is also scaling back production at an assembly plant in Oakville. Toyota will shut down production at three Canadian plants for the rest of the week due to supply chain disruption.
Also read: Loud trucker blockade of city center taunts Ottawa
Canadian and US authorities have expressed concern about the economic impact of the blockade. “We are closely monitoring this,” White House spokesman Jen Psaki said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the actions were “unacceptable,” he told the Canadian parliament on Wednesday. Demonstrators are trying to “block our economy, our democracy and the daily lives of our fellow citizens with disruptive actions,” he said. It must stop.”
Vaccination obligation
Trudeau, however, refuses to remove corona restrictions under pressure from the blockades. The trucker’s demonstrations started late last month with a nationwide vacation convoy to Ottawa in protest against a vaccination requirement for drivers crossing the border between Canada and the US. That duty was instituted by both countries in January.
“This disruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, auto industry workers, suppliers, communities and businesses on both sides of the border,” Ford said in a statement. “We hope that this situation will be resolved soon, as it could have extensive repercussions for all automakers in the US and Canada.”
The Ambassador Bridge spanning the border river between the US state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario is a vital link for the integrated North American auto industry. A quarter of all trade between the two neighboring countries goes through the bridge, including car parts and agricultural products. An alternative route via the Canadian border town of Sarnia also has to do with a blockade.
Car manufacturers in Canada and the United States work according to the system of ‘just-in-time delivery’, whereby parts are delivered shortly before they are processed. They are not saved to save costs. As a result of this approach, the automotive sector, which in addition to factories of the major automakers also consists of production facilities of hundreds of suppliers, is very sensitive to interruptions in the supply of parts.