In an extensive exhibition center in Hanover, thousands of companies, including 250 from Canada, take one of the world’s largest trading fairs that focus on industry technology and innovation.
Lines of cabins and conspicuous displays are supposed to trigger discussions, but a large part of the discussion went through the US tariffs, the markets that impair relationships, forced relationships, and forced some companies to accelerate their push for new trading partners.
“I was afraid I was very nervous, but it was absolutely overwhelming to see the reaction and the reception we received from European markets,” said Brad Sparkman, president of innovative innovation solutions in Ontario.
Since both Canada and the EU Union (EU) take over the tariffs raised by the United States, their most important trading partner, companies try to assess exactly how they are influenced – and whether they can weaken part of the economic affected by strengthening other trade relationships.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration introduced an agricultural tariff of 20 percent in the EU, and on Thursday morning an import duties of 25 percent came into force for foreign cars, including the people produced in Canada.
Cooling relationship with US customers
While Canada seems to be spared at the announcement on Wednesday, it is already with A 25 percent tariff for certain Canadian goods and 10 percent on energy.
Prime Minister Mark Carney described the tariff as a tragedy for global trade. On the Hanover Fair, the business people say that they are confused, amazed and even injured.
Sparkman, whose business focuses mainly on the use of robot technology to paint automobiles, fought the tears when he told CBC News about how some of his US contacts are not as receptive to cooperation in the current climate.
“I have the feeling that we lose a really good family member,” he said. “The fact that we cannot do business as we did once do me sadly.”
Brad Sparkman, the owner of a company in Ontario who specializes in the robot painting of automobiles, says his company dared to go to the European market and accepted us. “
Sparkman said he started to venture into the European market a few years ago because he suspected that trading in the USA could become more stressful.
In order to try to relieve the effects of tariffs, he is considering making more production in the United States and further branching in Europe.
His company, based in Orangeville and Peterborough, has teamed up with the Japanese automation company Fanuc and works in Germany, where cars and brands such as Volkswagen, Audi and Mercedes-Benz are the greatest export.
More trade in the third largest economy in the world
More than 4,000 companies are involved in the Hanover fair, and about a quarter of them come from Germany, the third largest economy in the world. Canada is this year’s partner country for the annual Expo, with Canadian companies participating together with representatives of the provinces, some communities and universities.
In the past few weeks there has been an increase in the interest of Canadian companies that wanted to take part in the fair.
Jayson Myers, the CEO von Ngen, a non -profit organization based in Ottawa, which focuses on technological development in advanced production, said that 80 Canadian companies have been registered in the past two months, a time when the tariff problems become more dramatic.
“I don’t think we will ever replace our economic relationship with the United States, but the problems in the past few months have really shown the urgency to find new markets, find new customers, ”he said in an interview with CBC News in Hanover.
The EU is Canada’s second largest trading partner after the United States in 2024, which exported 27 blocks 84 billion US dollars In Waren to Canada, while Canada exported 34 billion US dollars to the EU.
However, the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (EU Canada “(CETA), which temporarily came into force in 2017, regulates the trade between the two partners’ das Agreement, not yet by 10 EU nations due to ratification due to ratification A number of concerns They keep some about food safety and access to public procurement contracts.
Germany, which Ceta 2022 ratified, hit the exports to Canada in 2023. The Canadian exports reached a little more than a third of them.
Chris Wyatt, Head of Sales and Marketing by Kubes Steel, a metal manufacturer based in Stoney Creek, Ontario, often exports products to the USA. He believes that despite the tariffs, the states will probably remain an important customer. He decided to build a stand on the Hanover fairly because he hoped that there could be European demand for the products of his company.
Wyatt admits that there is no great chance now, but said that it could be in the future if Europe is moving to increase its defense spending.
How protectionism could backfire
Hartmut Rauen, deputy managing director of VDMA, a German association of more than 3,000 companies for mechanical engineering, is of the opinion that Canada and Germany can work more in terms of green technology, automation and artificial intelligence.
While he understands that the United States has lost a high proportion of its manufacturing jobs, he said that he did not understand the Trump government’s strategy to increase the investments through protectionism.
In the short term, he said, the USA must continue to import highly specialized German technology, as its factories cannot now produce this itself.
But with the tariffs it will cost more – and Rauen said he thinks it will have a noticeable effect for consumers.
“It could end in a disaster for the US economy and also for the global economy,” he said.
When the outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the fair at the fair on Sunday, he warned of the “misguided path of protectionism”, praised Canada and said that Germany was standing with the “independent sovereign country”.
The visit of the German leader and some of the reaction of the German business world encouraged those present, and industry experts hope that it could be put into actual trade.
“There is no panel, not an event that I visited this week, where there was no strong sign to get up with (Canada),” said Yvonne Denz, CEO of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
“I hope that my cell phone rings next week and my inbox with inquiries about what we can do in Canada will be disturbed.”
