Canadian workers rattled by Trump trade reversal: 'Just don't know anymore'

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For Canadians with jobs on the frontline of the tariff war, President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to end trade talks has intensified anxiety about their future — uncertainty that has become a daily reality.

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“You just don’t know anymore what’s going to happen day-to-day, week-to-week. There’s so much insecurity,” said John D’Agnolo, who leads an autoworkers union in Windsor, just across the U.S. border.

Canada has been hit uniquely hard by Trump’s global sector-specific tariffs, given the interconnected nature of the North American auto industry and the importance of U.S. buyers for Canadian steel and aluminum.

Workers across Ontario have been closely following the news, in hopes of a breakthrough.

Trump’s decision to shut down trade talks over an anti-tariff advertising campaign produced by Ontario’s provincial government — despite an apparently cordial meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney earlier this month — was yet another unsettling blow.