The Trade War With Canada Is Back On

Happy Friday! It’s October 24, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at the end of trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada, as well as a fire at a Ford aluminum supplier. We’ll also look at the resurrection of Alaska Airlines after technical issues, and the latest job shuffles (and cuts) at Rivian. 

The world keeps getting dumber! Canada is one of our closest trading partners, both geographically and in terms of how much companies like to work on both sides of the border. American companies build cars there, Canadian mining firms own locations in the States. We even share a waterfall! We don’t, though, share trade negotiations — at least not since Canada apparently quoted Ronald Reagan in an ad that President Trump saw. From Automotive News:

President Donald Trump said Oct. 23cthat he was ending “all trade negotiations” with Canada because of a television ad opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and called “egregious behavior” aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.

The post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs. Trump’s call for an abrupt end to negotiations could further inflame trade tensions that already have been building between the two neighboring countries for months.

Trump posted, “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.”

“The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

To be clear, using recordings of the sitting President is generally fine under fair use. There are no rights concerns here, there’s no fraud. This is just a tantrum, one that will have international ramifications. 

Ford aluminum supplier Novelis recently had a major fire, which is expected to cost Ford somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in lost profits this year. Ford’s solution to this, somehow, is to make even more aluminum-bodied F-150s. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to me either. From Automotive News:

Ford Motor Co. said a September fire at aluminum supplier Novelis will cut its profit by $1.5 billion to $2 billion this year. The automaker plans to offset $1 billion of that hit in 2026 by adding 1,000 workers in Kentucky and Michigan to increase production of its aluminum-bodied F-Series pickups.

Ford revealed the impact and mitigation efforts as it posted third-quarter net income of $2.4 billion, up from $900 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 9 percent to a record $50.5 billion.

Because of the supplier fire, Ford is lowering its 2025 full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest and taxes to a range of $6 billion to $6.5 billion. It also expects adjusted free cash flow of $2 billion to $3 billion.

Ford is able to source aluminum from competing suppliers in the interim, but presumably there’s a reason the company went with Novelis in the first place — will it be spending more to get this aluminum from other suppliers, cutting into its own profits?

Fliers on Thursday were faced with an Alaska Airlines tech outage, which stranded passengers all over. Now, the company claims its operations are finally coming back to full functionality. From the Wall Street Journal:

Alaska Airlines said it was restoring operations after a technology outage disrupted its operations, causing delays and cancellations.

The problems led Alaska to issue a systemwide ground stop Thursday evening. Dozens of Alaska flights experienced delays Thursday, many of which were due to arrive at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a hub for Alaska, according to flight-data provider FlightAware.

Flights from Alaska and its subsidiary Horizon Air were affected, though flights operated by Hawaiian Airlines, also owned by Alaska, weren’t.

I’ve been hoping to make a flight out to Seattle-Tacoma International, so Alaska better get everything fixed before I make it out to the PNW. I’ve never visited Seattle, and I’ve got friends there I need to say hi to. 

Rivian has a lot of enthusiasm around the R2 and R3 models, but it doesn’t yet have any actual trucks to sell. As it gears up for those, the company is still cutting costs — including 600 jobs, which Rivian eliminated to “streamline” operations. Even CEO RJ Scaringe is taking on extra work to pick up the slack, now acting as interim Chief Marketing Officer until the company can find someone full-time. From Automotive News:

Rivian Automotive Inc. CEO RJ Scaringe will serve as interim marketing chief as the EV maker restructures key operations following more than 600 job cuts, the company said in an internal memo from Scaringe.

“We have made the decision to form a single marketing organization, and while we recruit our first chief marketing officer, I will be acting as interim CMO,” Scaringe said in the message to staff Oct. 23.

The shakeup comes as Rivian prepares to launch its lower-priced R2 crossover next year.

I truly hope Rivian pulls the R2 launch off, and that a more affordable model helps buoy the company. I love the R1 series trucks, they truly feel thought-out and lacking tech debt in a way that little else on the market does, and I want the company to stick around. 

I grew up learning, as all Connecticut residents do, to take the Tappan Zee over the GW whenever possible. Now, as an adult, that hierarchy remains in my mind — names and all. You can’t make me call it the “Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge,” shut up. Stop trying. It’s the Tappan Zee. 

Yesterday was New Health Jueves for all who celebrate, and boy do I celebrate.