GM ‘Caves To Donald Trump’ And Cuts 1,000 Jobs At Canada’s Last Assembly Plant
The last crew at Oshawa Assembly clocked in Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. and walked out Friday morning at 6:30 a.m. into a parking lot they wouldn’t return to. Hundreds of workers built their final Silverado that night at a plant running three shifts just hours earlier. The trucks kept rolling off the line until the lights cut. No ceremony. No warning beyond months of dread. GM had already decided where those Silverados would be built next, and it wasn’t Ontario.
Loaded Bet
Oshawa Assembly reopened in 2021 after its 2019 shutdown, backed by federal and provincial investment and a promise of long-term production. Roughly 3,000 unionized workers built Chevrolet Silverado and Silverado HD trucks there. Then in April 2025, the Trump administration slapped 25% tariffs on Canadian-built vehicles. Within weeks, GM announced the third shift would go. Strong truck demand delayed the execution from summer into January, but the outcome never changed. The plant that came back from the dead had an expiration date stapled to its revival.
The Squeeze
GM framed the cut as tariff math: 25% duties made Canadian-built trucks too expensive for U.S. buyers. Unifor National President Lana Payne saw it differently. “General Motors has made a clear decision to cave to Donald Trump rather than stand up for its loyal Canadian workforce,” she said, “making the workers in Oshawa pay for that appeasement with their jobs.” The company had already shuttered its Ingersoll CAMI facility months earlier. Oshawa now stood as the only GM assembly plant left in Canada. One plant. One shift fewer.
Record Profits
The same week GM cut those 700 jobs, the company reported adjusted pre-tax earnings exceeding $12 billion for 2025. Then it announced a $6 billion share buyback and hiked its dividend 20%. Workers lost paychecks. Shareholders got a raise. The tariff “necessity” that justified gutting Oshawa coexisted with a year GM still cleared over $12 billion in adjusted operating profit. That’s the gap that turns a layoff story into something uglier: a company that could absorb the cost chose instead to pass it to the people on the assembly line.
Where The Trucks Went
GM redirected 50,000 Silverados annually to its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant. Fort Wayne was already building Silverados. The “shift” didn’t create new American capacity. It starved a Canadian facility to feed an existing U.S. one. CEO Mary Barra cited roughly $4 billion to $5 billion in tariff exposure to justify the reallocation. But tariffs target production location, not product demand. Silverado buyers didn’t disappear. Oshawa’s workers did. The truck kept selling. The hands that built it just changed countries.
Mexican Irony
Here is the number that unravels the tariff logic: 54,068 Silverados sold in Canada during 2025 were sourced primarily from Mexico, not Ontario. In 2024, GM produced 151,000 vehicles in Canada but sold nearly 300,000, importing most from U.S. and Mexican factories. The plant that just lost 700 jobs wasn’t even supplying the Canadian market it sat inside. Mexico faces Trump tariffs too, yet Mexico wasn’t cut. Canada was. Tariff necessity starts looking like geographic convenience when the supply chain tells a different story than the press release.
Ripple Wave
Beyond the 700 direct layoffs, hundreds of supply chain jobs across Ontario parts suppliers and transporters now face cascading cuts as orders dry up. Local union president Jeff Gray captured the mood: “You feel very nervous and anxious that you can continue to provide a living for yourself and your family.” The federal government responded by slashing GM’s auto remission quota by 24.2% in October 2025, a direct financial penalty signaling Ottawa viewed the cuts as a corporate choice, not a tariff inevitability.
The $63 Million Tell
Nineteen days after cutting 700 workers, GM announced a $63 million investment in Oshawa’s stamping operations to prepare for next-generation gasoline-powered Silverados. Read that sequence again. Fire the humans. Fund the machines. The investment targets automation, not rehiring. GM committed capital to Oshawa’s future while erasing one-quarter of its present workforce. That timeline reveals the architecture: tariffs provided the justification, layoffs freed the budget, and automation captured the savings. Workers bore the cost. Shareholders and stamping presses split the reward.
Domino Line
With Stellantis Brampton paused and Ford navigating an uncertain EV transition at its Oakville complex, Oshawa’s hollowing out signals something broader than one company’s decision. Ontario’s entire auto assembly sector is fragmenting under tariff pressure. If duties continue or escalate, Stellantis and Ford face identical math. Displaced workers have no equivalent manufacturing roles waiting in a shrinking regional economy. GM’s 2026 earnings guidance projects $10.3 to $11.7 billion in net income, a dramatic recovery built partly on the consolidation that eliminated those Oshawa shifts.
Permission Slip
The pattern is now visible: tariff shock, delay for political cover, execute the cuts, invest in automation, return capital to shareholders. GM didn’t cave to a tariff. GM used a tariff. Every worker who clocked out at 6:30 a.m. on January 30 absorbed a cost that a $12 billion company chose not to. Ottawa is already exploring clawbacks on prior government investment. Unifor is demanding revocation of GM’s tariff-exempt import privileges. The fight over who pays for trade wars just moved from policy papers to factory floors.
Sources:
“GM Cuts Third Shift, 700 Jobs at Silverado-Making Oshawa Plant.” Guide Auto Web, 27 Jan 2026.
“GM Releases 2025 Financial Results and 2026 Guidance; Board Declares Dividend at 20% Higher Quarterly Rate, and Approves New $6.0 Billion Share Repurchase Authorization.” General Motors (press release via Dow Jones), 26–27 Jan 2026.
“GM Canada Layoffs Hit Oshawa Plant, Putting Up to 1,200 Workers at Risk.” CBC News, 29 Jan 2026.
“GM to Spend $63M on Upgrades at Oshawa Plant.” CBC News, 18 Feb 2026.
