Speaking at a Reuters automotive conference in Detroit this week, Honda executive Jennifer Thomas said the threatened doubling of US tariffs on Canadian vehicles and parts on Jan. 1 would be, in her word, “catastrophic” — not for one company, but “for the entire industry.” Canada and Ontario announced a joint support package for the sector on Oct. 21; the uncertainty it answers is still standing.
The exposure is structural. A part can cross the Canada–US border repeatedly as it moves through machining, coating, sub-assembly and final build, and each crossing is a cost event whose size depends on classification, origin and paperwork. When the rate may change on a date circled in red, a supplier who cannot see its own crossings cannot price, promise or plan.
Most mid-sized suppliers still track that exposure the slow way: broker reports after the fact, spreadsheets assembled for a specific question, and institutional knowledge held by whoever has always done the customs paperwork. The information exists. It just cannot be asked a question and expected to answer this week.
Tariffs are a policy problem. Not knowing your exposure to them is a data problem — and that one is solvable before January.
Solvable means connected: orders, shipments, classifications and crossings in systems that talk to each other, with reporting an executive can run without a two-week project — the systems integration work that turns scattered records into a live picture of where the company stands.
Suppliers have roughly two months. Use them on visibility: list every part that crosses the border, how often, and under what classification, in one place you can query. Whatever governments decide, the companies that can see their exposure will be the ones still quoting with confidence.