NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - Multiple blockades at some of the busiest routes linking Canada to the United States are disrupting supply chains of major automakers, leading to production stoppages.
This is fanning alarm that the Covid-19 trucker protests in Canada are threatening the country's economy and trade with the US, its biggest trading partner.
Automakers, already suffering from a global shortage of semiconductors needed to power their vehicles, are being particularly affected by the partial shutdown of the Ambassador Bridge, which links Detroit, Michigan, with Windsor, Ontario, and accounts for roughly one-third of the trade between the two countries.
Trucks make thousands of trips across the bridge each day in both directions, carrying US$300 million (S$404 million) worth of goods, about one-third of which are related to the automobile industry, a major employer across the Midwest and Ontario.
As the border blockades in Ontario continued, Ford Motor said on Thursday morning that plants in Oakville and Windsor were running at reduced capacity.
Toyota said the shutdown would prevent the company from being able to manufacture anything at its three Canadian plants for the rest of this week. And General Motors said it had cancelled two shifts on Wednesday and Thursday at a factory in Lansing, Michigan, that makes sport utility vehicles.
The blockades are a spillover from demonstrations in Canada's capital, Ottawa, that began nearly two weeks ago when loosely organised groups of truck drivers and others converged on the city to protest vaccination requirements for truckers crossing into Canada from the US.
In addition to the blockades, the protests have morphed into a battle cry against pandemic restrictions in general and the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Mr Trudeau said on Thursday that the protests were undermining businesses, supply chains and the Canadian economy, and he reiterated his repeated call for them to end.
Far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world have amplified the message of the Canadian protesters on social media, raising millions of dollars in online campaigns.
The protests have also inspired copycat convoys in France, New Zealand and Australia. In the US, protesters may be planning a copycat convoy near the Super Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday, according to a Department of Homeland Security internal memo obtained by The New York Times.
Paris police officials on Thursday issued an order banning a convoy of truckers and drivers heading to the French capital to protest the country's vaccination pass programme, as part of a movement directly inspired by Canada's trucker-led protests.
In Canada, Mr Trudeau has faced a barrage of criticism from opposition politicians, including the contention that overzealous restrictions are keeping Canada in a state of a permanent pandemic and that he has been too passive in the face of the protests undermining Canada's image on the global stage.
But in a sign of intensifying impatience with the protests, even among former political supporters, Ms Candice Bergen, interim leader of the Conservative Party, on Thursday called for the protesters to "take down the barricades", citing disruptions to the economy.
