Alcoa's aluminum smelter in Becancour, Que., in February. The company employs 2,500 people at three smelters in the province.Bernard Brault/Reuters
The head of U.S. aluminum producer Alcoa Corp. AA-N is hoping the Trump administration will agree to a carve-out for Canada on aluminum tariffs, as he stresses the massive profit hit the levies are having on Alcoa’s Quebec operations.
Citing national security concerns over the United States not producing enough aluminum at home, U.S. President Donald Trump in March imposed a global tariff of 25 per cent on imports of the industrial metal. In June, he doubled the tariff to 50 per cent, a level that essentially made all Canadian exports to the U.S. unprofitable.
Pittsburgh-based Alcoa is a major player in the U.S. and Canadian aluminum industries. In Quebec, it operates three smelters and employs 2,500 people. During the second quarter, U.S. tariffs on Canada cost the company US$115-million.
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Right from the get-go of the trade war, Bill Oplinger, the chief executive officer of Alcoa, has been a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, saying that each smelter job in Quebec supports 13 downstream jobs in the U.S., building new U.S. capacity isn’t realistic and stressing that Canada and the U.S. are far too interconnected to break apart.
In an interview on Tuesday with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Oplinger said that while the optimal scenario is that Mr. Trump drops his aluminum tariffs on all countries, another option that would help enormously is the U.S. continuing to tariff other countries, but making an exception for Canada.
“There is a middle ground here whereby the Canadians and the U.S. could agree to just extend the tariff wall to include Canada,” he said.
“Tariffs would continue to be in place, but Canada would not have to pay those tariffs.”
The U.S. leans heavily on Canada to satisfy its aluminum demand for myriad industries, including aerospace, defence, construction and automotive. Canadian smelters last year sent approximately 2.9 million tonnes of primary aluminum to U.S. customers, accounting for 70 per cent of American imports. The U.S. itself produced only 670,000 tonnes in 2024.
Mr. Oplinger has been in close contact with the Trump administration, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. He also spoke briefly with Mr. Trump, inviting him to one of the company’s plants so he could get a first-hand look at its operations. The Trump administration overall has been receptive to the Alcoa CEO’s message.
“They listen, they seem willing to understand the situation and they will hear me out,” Mr. Oplinger said. “Which is really all that I ask.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney is targeting Aug. 1 to reach a broader trade deal with the U.S. However, last week, he conceded that a tariff-free pact is not likely. In addition to aluminum, there are other U.S. levies on Canada’s steel and automotive sectors. Mr. Trump is also planning to bring in a global tariff on copper imports in about a week, something that would put added pressure on Canada’s metals industry.
With the possibility of tariffs on Canadian aluminum continuing over the long term, Alcoa is considering pulling back on investment in Canada, a complete reversal of the situation the company was in not that long ago.
“When you have a profitable plant, the first place you want to reinvest is in those profitable plants. If you had asked us nine months ago, Quebec was really one of the crown jewels of Alcoa,” Mr. Oplinger said.
“That profitability has been negatively impacted, and therefore we just have to reassess our position.”
Alcoa had flexibility during the second quarter to redirect about 30 per cent of its Canadian aluminum production to other markets besides the U.S., but the remaining 70 per cent was subject to longer-term contracts with customers. Many of those contracts come up for renewal toward the end of the year, and Alcoa will then be in a position to charge its U.S. customers more for aluminum.
A major offsetting factor for Alcoa is that U.S. prices for aluminum have risen significantly because of the tariffs. Consequently, its U.S. smelters are more profitable than they were before the trade war.
Apart from Alcoa, the other major aluminum producers in Canada are Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto PLC RIO-N and Aluminerie Alouette Inc.
Spokespeople for Rio Tinto and Alouette declined to comment.
With a report from Nicolas Van Praet