Vance defends Trump’s Canadian trade war that could have outsized impact on KC

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Vice President JD Vance made the case on Monday that any economic hardship Kansas City workers and consumers experience as a result of the Trump administration’s trade war with Canada will be worth the long-term benefits of a renegotiated trade agreement.

Trade talks between the two countries broke down last month, prompting President Donald Trump to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs on roughly 700 American products went into effect on Sept. 8.

“One of the things the president is trying to do is just make things more fair for the American worker,” Vance told reporters at a press conference inside Kansas City’s FBI headquarters.

A 2025 study by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce identified Kansas City as one of the three metropolitan areas with the most economic exposure to a protracted trade conflict between the allied North American nations.

The Kansas City metro area exports about $4 billion in goods to Canada annually, including vehicles, plastics, chemicals and agricultural products.

“To your point about that $4 billion export market, we’ve got to ask ourselves, is Canada applying restrictions on Kansas City workers or Missouri workers or Kansas workers that it’s not applying to anybody else?” Vance said.

“And the unfortunate answer is, despite the fact that we love Canada — it’s obviously a friendly country in a lot of ways — their government has imposed extraordinary trade restrictions on American workers all across our country for many years,” he said.

As evidence, Vance pointed to a steep Canadian import tax on American dairy products beyond quotas the two countries previously agreed to.

“If you buy a pound of butter from Canada, we’re not applying any tariffs on it, or at least we weren’t,” Vance said. “But if we actually send agricultural products to Canada, sometimes our farmers are paying 200 percent, 300 percent.”

However, the vice president’s example is misleading. In reality, the Canadian tariff only applies if American exports exceed quotas established in an agreement during Trump’s first term. As a practical matter, American producers do not export enough dairy to Canada to trigger the tax, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

Kansas City manufacturing

Automobile manufacturing is one industry that stands to suffer if the U.S. and Canada can’t expeditiously agree to new trade terms. The Kansas City area features two major auto plants.

In Clay County, Ford operates a 1,200-acre Kansas City Assembly Plant, which employs more than 9,000 workers and currently produces the Ford Transit van and F-150 pickup truck. General Motors operates the Fairfax Assembly and Stamping plant in Kansas City, Kansas. That facility, which employs about 2,000 people, has been in oprtation since 1947.

“When you increase tariffs, of course, those who suffer first are workers because prices go up and their real wages go down,” Ariel Dvoskin, an economics professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City, told The Star last month.

On Monday, Vance reiterated his stance that American manufacturers are getting a raw deal in Canada compared to other countries. He did not respond directly to a question about what the administration plans to do to mitigate economic hardship brought on by the trade war.

“At the same exact time, while Canada is imposing a whole host of tariffs on our workers and a whole host of export and import controls on American workers, they’re letting products come in from the People’s Republic of China with nothing like that level of restriction,” Vance said.

“So, what the president is doing here — and it’s not in an effort to hurt anybody — certainly not the United States, and not even in Canada. We’re trying to make things more fair, and what we’re saying to the Canadian government is, ‘If you want access to American markets, you have to be fair to American workers,'” Vance said.

On Labor Day, Trump threatened to halt the sale of all Bombardier products unless the Canadian-owned aircraft manufacturer expands its operations in America. The company’s U.S. headquarters are located in Wichita, where workers primarily prepare Canadian-manufactured planes for special mission purposes. Bombardier currently holds a multi-year contract with the U.S. Air Force valued at close to $465 million.

Vance projected confidence that the eventual resolution of the trade dispute will “lead to a place that’s much better for American workers; I think, frankly, much better for Canadian workers, too.”

“But they’ve got to be more fair, and if they’re going to mistreat American workers then it’s incumbent upon the president of the United States to fight back, which is exactly what he’s doing right now,” Vance said.