FIELD REPORT: In Valcourt, Trump turns back the Spyder on Tuesday, and January will pay

Three wheels in Valcourt

A roadster built in January

On September 29 at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time, a Can-Am Spyder built in Valcourt will become an object the United States refuses to import.

Three wheels. Handlebars. An engine. A roadster, says BRP, which builds it at a plant next to its head office in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.

A photo from The Canadian Press, picked up by CBC, shows a Spyder being assembled at BRP’s facilities in Valcourt. It was taken in January.

January is no detail.

An object. A date. A plant. Nothing else to understand, and everything to count.

Snowmobiles until December

Right now, La Presse reports, workers at the plant are building snowmobiles. Usually until the end of December.

After that, the line pivots to three-wheeled motorcycles.

In other words, the Spyder Washington turns back on Tuesday is not the one being built this week. It is January’s.

Gloves pulled on before the shift. The clack of a pneumatic wrench, over and over. It is the sound of any assembly line, and it is the target of a proclamation that has never heard it.

Three wheels, and a season that starts in January.

Excluded one minute after midnight

The eighth day of September

The text bears Donald Trump’s signature, dated September 8, 2026. Its closing formula speaks of the “eighth day of September.”

Its title is long. It announces the exclusion of certain Canadian products, in response to continued discrimination against American commerce in motor vehicles.

Its effect fits in one sentence. The targeted products are excluded for any goods imported on or after 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on September 29.

The category targeted, according to La Presse: motorcycles with internal combustion engines over 800 cubic centimetres.

The one line that matters

The same day, other proclamations targeted alcohol, whey and molasses; this report follows only the motorcycle.

Excluded. The word comes from law. It translates into simple things.

No customs clearance. No dealer. No customer at the end of the road.

Until now, the Spyder paid to get through. On Tuesday, it will no longer get through.

The border will no longer ask how much. It will say no. No discussion. No window.

One minute past midnight, and a roadster becomes unwanted.

Already taxed at 50%

August 22

The Spyder does not discover the border on Tuesday.

On July 20, a first proclamation, 11048, concluded that Canada discriminates against American commerce through its tariffs on motor vehicles. It imposed additional duties.

On August 18, Washington suspended them for three days. On the 21st, according to the White House, Canada “reneged” on its commitment and stopped negotiating in good faith.

On August 22 at 12:01 a.m., the 50% duties took effect.

On September 3, BRP’s chief financial officer, Sébastien Martel, spelled it out for analysts: the product line hit by those 50% duties is the Spyder.

What Tuesday adds

Taxed at 50% since August, turned back from Tuesday.

Two dates. One object. No change in the object.

The Spyder did not change engines between those two dates. The Spyder did not change plants. Only the sentence aimed at it changed.

I stand with the people who normally build Spyders in Valcourt starting in January. Against the proclamation Donald Trump signed on September 8. Because on the 29th at 12:01 a.m., it replaces a tariff that could be negotiated with a door that cannot.

A tax leaves a price. An exclusion leaves only the border.

The text never names Valcourt

Six signed sentences

I read the proclamation in full. It is short, precise, without one adjective too many.

The proclamation says Canada has “maintained” its discrimination after the 50% duties took effect.

The proclamation says this advice comes from senior officials of the executive branch. They are not named.

The proclamation says goods that arrived before the 29th, but have not yet been entered for consumption, will remain taxed at 50%.

It says customs can amend the annex by a simple notice in the Federal Register.

It says that if the ban is struck down, the 50% duties will apply again.

And it says the exclusion is “consistent with the public interests.”

It does not say Valcourt.

A customs code

It does not say Spyder either. The product list is relegated to an annex, under American tariff code 8711.50.00, according to Le Blog Moto.

A nomenclature code for a town in the Eastern Townships.

The text that bans already provides for its own return to the tariff. Who are the senior officials who recommended it?

Nowhere the word Valcourt, and yet it is Valcourt’s address.

One word: limited

The email of September 24

On Thursday, September 24, BRP spokesperson Emilie Proulx answered CBC by email.

The impact of the new American measures is “expected to be limited on our fiscal 2027,” she wrote. The vast majority of production and shipments for the current season is done.

According to CBC, the spokesperson also said the measure will not start to threaten the bottom line until next spring.

Limited. The word is accurate. It carries a date.

Spring. January. Two words that say the same thing. Not now. Later.

Sixty million next year

On September 3, Sébastien Martel put a number on something else. For the Spyder alone, under the 50% tariff, a headwind of about $60 to $65 million next year.

Limited, the spokesperson writes. Sixty to sixty-five million, the chief financial officer said three weeks earlier. That was before the door closed.

For all its products sold in the United States, BRP expects net tariff exposure of $200 million this year, and about $225 million over a full year, Martel said.

In the spring, the Globe and Mail reports, the company feared $500 million for the rest of the fiscal year. Its stock fell 30% at the time.

A company that counts this finely does not pick the word limited by chance. It is talking about its fiscal year. Not its assembly line.

Limited this year means postponed to the next.

A tariff is a number

What can be negotiated

Barry Appleton co-directs the Center for International Law at New York Law School. He spoke to CBC.

A ban, in his view, is very hard to lift. A tariff can be brought down: it is a number. A ban, as a rule, stays.

Fifty percent can be negotiated. So can 25%. So can a date, an exemption, a quota.

Zero cannot be negotiated.

A door without a number

The Spyder paid an entry price. From Tuesday, there will be no price left to move.

And yet a Spyder turned back does not bring a dollar into the American Treasury. The 50% tariff brought in something. The exclusion brings in nothing.

Washington gives up collecting in order to close the door.

The Treasury gains nothing. Valcourt loses a road.

A closed door cannot be sliced. It cannot be cut in half. It opens, or it stays shut.

A number can be argued. A closed door can only be endured.

Harley-Davidson, same threshold

800 cubic centimetres on each side

Here is Washington’s strongest argument. I take it as it stands.

Canada taxes American vehicles, the proclamation says, and it has kept up that discrimination. In August, Ottawa even put American motorcycles, Harley-Davidson included, on its list of 50% countertariffs, CBC reports.

According to Le Blog Moto, the Canadian tax, applied since September, targets American combustion-engine motorcycles over 800 cubic centimetres. The same threshold, to the cubic centimetre.

The Globe and Mail lists Indian Motorcycle among the American symbols affected. Reciprocity, then.

Fifty, the legal ceiling

The argument holds until the order of dates. The Spyder had been paying 50% since August 22. The Canadian tax on motorcycles followed, in September.

It then holds until a number. The American text gives it itself: Section 338 authorizes additional duties of 50% at most.

Ottawa answered 50% with 50%. Washington answers 50% with exclusion, the step the law reserves for a country that keeps up its discrimination.

Rate for rate, on one side. Rate against a door, on the other.

This is not a mirror. It is one notch higher. The only notch the law was holding in reserve.

The same threshold on each side, but not the same weapon.

Our retaliation has an address too

Motorcycles from Iowa

Now I have to write what costs my own side.

Our 50% tax does not hit the White House. It hits an American motorcycle entering Canada, then the person who buys it here.

According to Le Blog Moto, every Indian currently assembled in Iowa exceeds the threshold. At Harley-Davidson, the smallest engine is 975 cubic centimetres.

6,434 Harleys sold here

The same source puts the number of Harley-Davidsons sold in Canada in 2025 at 6,434.

Those are Canadian dealers. Those are Canadian mechanics. Those are Canadian riders, who may pay more for the same machine.

A tariff is paid first at import. It often ends up at the till.

That is true, and it does not change this: our retaliation leaves a number on the table. From Tuesday, theirs will leave none for motorcycles.

I would rather write it myself. An American reader would have written it for me.

Our tax also ends up in a garage.

January’s Spyder

The line that pivots

Back to the line.

At the end of December, if the usual calendar holds, the season’s last snowmobile will leave assembly. The stations will switch parts. The jigs too.

In January, as a rule, Valcourt switches to the Spyder.

It will be the first January in which the roadster built here no longer has the road south, if nothing moves before then.

A season without a road

I admit it. I don’t know what BRP will decide for this season. The company has not said. That silence is what worries me most.

La Presse wrote on September 9 that BRP has a little time before it faces decisions. The picture could change if the easing is slow to come.

In every vehicle plant in the North, there are those January mornings. Doors banging shut on the cold. Boots stamped against the threshold. The first engine started on the test bench, filling the shop.

An assembler does not sign proclamations. He tightens bolts. He recognizes a part by touch, gloves half off. He knows, at the end of the shift, how many machines rolled out.

This year, those mornings would carry one more question.

Who is this Spyder for?

A line can pivot. A closed border cannot.

The other side of the counter

A known cost

The border has two sides. The second has a dealer.

Mark Sheffield advises the National Powersports Dealer Association, which speaks for American powersports dealers. On LinkedIn, the Globe and Mail reports, he wrote that a dealer knows how to manage a known cost.

What he manages badly, in his view, are rules that change fast.

Ordered, in transit, promised

Especially when the inventory is already ordered, in transit or promised to customers.

Availability, pricing, the value of used motorcycles: he lists what the ban disrupts for retailers.

Landon French heads Moto Canada, which brings together manufacturers, distributors and retailers of motorcycles and scooters. He is asking both governments to back down and return to the table. That, he says, is the only way out.

That cost appears in no annex.

An American rider waiting for a new Spyder signed nothing. Neither did an assembler in Valcourt.

At the dealership, uncertainty costs more than the price.

Ottawa calls it unjustified

The evening of September 8

On the evening of the signing, the minister responsible for Canada–U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc, reacted on social media, CBC reports.

His priority, he wrote, remains protecting workers, farmers, families and businesses against these unjustified actions. He said he was in contact with the U.S. Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer.

Two days later, Carney

On September 10, Mark Carney said his government is examining the bans and the new tariffs closely. For some businesses and some sectors, he acknowledged according to CBC, the effect is significant, and a response exists.

A response exists. Which one, for the Spyder?

The name Valcourt does not appear in those statements, as CBC reports them.

This is not a reproach. A minister speaks for a country. A country also defends itself plant by plant.

Protecting workers starts with naming their plant.

Mexico, Vietnam, Valcourt

The Ryker is not covered

BRP is not one plant. It is a map.

The Ryker, its other three-wheeler, escapes the ban, the Globe and Mail reports. So do its two-wheeled motorcycles. None of them is made in Canada.

According to Bloomberg, the two-wheelers come out of Mexico, and Ryker production is moving from Mexico to Vietnam.

On September 3, BRP president Denis Le Vot confirmed it to analysts: the Ryker will be the first model built at the company’s new Vietnamese plant.

A lesson for factories

Do the math of a board of directors. Three-wheelers. Three countries. Only one excluded.

A plant lives off its markets. Valcourt’s Spyder loses the closest one.

The lesson the exclusion teaches would be simple: build nothing in Canada that has to cross that border.

Nothing suggests BRP will take it to heart. On its website, the company presents Valcourt as its home, where it all began.

And yet a proclamation does not need to win in court to do that kind of work. It only needs to last.

Moving a plant is faster than moving a town.

A drop in the ocean, a town

5,092 motorcycles

On a national scale, the number is small. Canada exported only 5,092 motorcycles of all types in 2025, according to CBC.

La Presse puts Canadian exports of motorcycles over 800 cubic centimetres at about US$80 million last year. A drop in the ocean, the paper writes, next to everything Canada ships.

Quebec first

And yet the drop falls on a precise spot. CBC and the Globe and Mail both write it: the motorcycle ban hits Quebec hard, where the Carney government has a significant voter base.

It is a drop for Ottawa. It is a drop for Washington. For the Spyder line, it is the whole season.

A national number smooths everything out. It files Valcourt in the same column as the rest of the country. It makes the plant invisible.

The choice of product would then target an address as much as a volume. That is a deduction. The White House did not write it.

Valcourt.

Small for the country, whole for a town.

A season held in pawn

Tuesday, one minute past midnight

On Tuesday at 12:01 a.m., nothing will make a sound in Valcourt.

The snowmobiles will keep rolling out. The current season is almost entirely delivered, BRP says. The cost waits for January and spring.

August 22, a number. September 29, a door.

If January arrives without the motorcycle on the table…

A season on the table

A negotiation between states is counted in percentages and billions. A plant is counted in seasons.

At the table, they talk sectors. They talk rates. They talk deadlines. An assembly line in the Eastern Townships deserves its sentence there, with its name.

Will a season of work in Valcourt weigh less than a percentage point in the negotiation?

The figure of 5,092 motorcycles does not answer. The month of January will.

Until then, the line will build snowmobiles.

Turned back from Tuesday, January’s Spyder looks for a road.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• White House — proclamation excluding Canadian motorcycles, September 8, 2026
• CBC News — the September 29 bans and BRP’s email, September 27, 2026
• BRP — transcript of the September 3 analyst call, published September 9, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• lapresse.ca — the Valcourt plant and another tariff morning-after, September 9, 2026
• The Globe and Mail — BRP and the ban on Canadian motorcycles, September 9, 2026
• leblogmoto.com — the 800 cc threshold on each side of the border, September 21, 2026