Dear Shareholder,
We are writing to give you an update on the tariff situation following the announcements over the weekend of tariffs imposed on trade starting tomorrow,
The key messages are:
1) This is a fluid situation and we are keeping close to the situation and customers to manage it
2) Tariffs on product shipping to the US are across the board, tariffs on product shipping toCanada andMexico are more targeted and don't include most manufactured products meaning the most impactful tariffs for us will be those imposed by the US
3) Because the tariffs imposed by the US include auto parts we are likely to see our customers slow or cease production in the near term
Here is a recap on what has happened so far:
The US has imposed 25% tariffs on all product exported into the US from
In response, the government of
The Mexican government has also announced a plan to impose tariffs on US goods imported into
Notably, the latest development is an apparent pause or delay of tariffs against
Tel: (519) 836-7550 ? Fax: (519) 824-8479 ? linamar.com Global Support
Our Canadian operations to a large extent and to a lesser extent our Mexican do export product into the US so our customers will be faced with paying the tariffs on product we ship to them when imposed.
Our other global operations in general do not export to the US so will not be overtly impacted by these tariffs although there is some small impact on programs in
What does this mean for
Mobility
For our automotive customers it is not possible to shift supply sources to alternative sources quickly. Highly engineered parts and systems such as ours and other components in the industry take months or years to tool up,test and validate meaning our customers if they choose to continue to produce will be forced to pay these fees for an extended period of time.
Because the auto industry is highly integrated across the 3 countries our customers will be faced with paying billions of dollars of tariffs on their product supplied from
As a result, we estimate that our customers will choose to stop production once their inventories of supplied product from
We are in close contact with our customers to understand their planned reaction to the imposition of the tariffs which is of course very fluid in this dynamic environment.
We hope that our customers will be vocal in their opposition to the tariffs on auto parts with the US administration to pressure the tariffs to be dropped.
Industrial
For our industrial businesses our customers do have some choices with respect to buying the type of product we make to some extent. We have some competitors building product in the US for some but not all of our products.
That said, our American competitors only have so much capacity to fill customer orders meaning a need for our industrial businesses to still supply product.
We have taken some early action in this regard to prioritize US bound orders and to also have placed a buffer of inventory of our industrial products already in warehouses in the US. This will allow us to continue to ship tariff free to our customers until that inventory runs out.
It is our hope that this strategy will buy us some time until the tariffs are lifted from Canadian and Mexican imports into the US.
Linamar Response
We have been asked if we plan to close plants in
We make decisions on our manufacturing footprint on long term fundamentals, things like availability of talent, access to a cost-effective supply chain, costs in a jurisdiction as well as availability, cost and cleanliness of important inputs such as energy or water.
We don't make decisions on manufacturing footprint on something as short term as a tariff. A tariff, as we are seeing, can be imposed tomorrow and dropped the next day.
Tel: (519) 836-7550 ? Fax: (519) 824-8479 ? linamar.com Global Support
Our Canadian plants have our deepest talent pool and are our most productive facilities in the world. Our Mexican plants are devoted to continuous improvement and achieve it every day.
We will not incur billions of dollars of cost to shift production locations for something that can change on a whim of government. Not to mention the negative impact on thousands of our employees and their families.
We are working closely with our sales and purchasing teams to gather information and quantify what we know so far to ensure our team is fully up to speed at all times in this dynamic environment.
In Summary
We remain committed to our employees and our facilities in all 3 countries. We have fantastic teams in the US as well that also work hard to drive improvement every day and win new business and we will continue to do so there, just as we will in
Lastly, remember tariffs don't create prosperity they destroy it. No imposition of a tariff regime in history has resulted in prosperity, only inflation, a decline in productivity and economic depression.
In the end we all want the same outcomes, a healthy economy with good job opportunities for all of our countries and a good way of life for all our people.
We will stay focused, responsive to our customers needs, opportunistic for where we might find opportunity in this chaos, and continue to drive every day for better and better efficiency and productivity. In the end, the most efficient and the most innovative among us will win, and we are a winning team at
We have no doubt we will work through these challenges and achieve that outcome. We will keep you informed as quickly as we can to new developments in the situation.
Best wishes,
Executive Chair CEO and President
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