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A Brampton factory ships $100M worth of zinc oxide to the U.S. each year. Here is how tariffs could impact their business.

CTV News Toronto’s Sean Leathong visits a factory in Brampton that sends over $100 million worth of zinc oxide to the U.S. each year.

Editor’s note: This is the final installment of a four-part CTV News Toronto’s series taking a closer look at the impact that Donald Trump’s promised tariffs could have on businesses in the Greater Toronto Area.

Unloading refined zinc by the tonne, a factory in Brampton is creating something used by millions in everyday life.

Zochem is the largest producer of zinc oxide in North America, sending over $100 million worth to the United States each year.

The company is American owned with headquarters in Tennessee. Their Brampton plant has been operating for 50 years, having been purchased by Zochem a few years ago. They are a prime example of how intertwined the Canadian and U.S. economies really are as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to threaten to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods.

“So we’re a manufacturer of high quality French process zinc oxide.” President and CEO of Zochem Mohit Sharma tells CTV News Toronto. “It is in the tires, rubber agriculture, which is animal feed and fertilizer. It’s into pharmaceutical products such as your multivitamins, your sunscreen, your baby’s diaper rash, cream and the list goes on.”

The zinc used in Zochem’s Brampton factory is mined way up in northwest Alaska. From there, the product is brought into Canada to be refined in Trail, BC. The refined Zinc is then sent via rail to Zochem and made into zinch oxide. Zinch oxide is then shipped to customers primarily in the U.S.

Many of the products that Canada exports to the U.S., like zinc oxide, steel and aluminum are considered unfinished. They are then used by American manufacturers to create a finished product like, an automobile.

The 25 percent tariff would therefore be baked into many products on store shelves.

“We have every tire company that you can think of that you’ve seen. We work with a lot of the large pharmaceutical companies known globally as well as some of the food additive companies as well, and in oil and gas,” says Sharma.

‘A fight amongst partners’

Trump has suggested that the United States could implement new tariffs at the Canadian and Mexican borders as soon as Feb. 1.

Flavio Volpe from the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association says a tariff fight is ultimately a fight amongst partners.

“And so while we sit here in a fight that nobody wanted between partners, our adversary eats our lunch,” he says.

Jean Simard, President and CEO of the Aluminum Manufacturers Association, says he sees the current instability as an opportunity for Canada and the United States to more closely align their partnership.

“To seize the moment and go beyond this tariff issue and probably address the continental security issue because at the end this is what is the issue.,” he says.

Catherine Cobden, President and CEO of the Canadian Steel Producers Association uses steel as an example of what can be done. She says that Canada and the United States are enforcing identical tariffs on Chinese steel, a product they see as unfairly traded.

Cobden says the current trade dispute could be a chance “to strengthen that North American steel trade and ensure unfair traders like we have seen with certain jurisdictions overseas remain out of the market.”

Companies like Zochem, meanwhile, are left wondering, “will the tariffs come?”

“There is a bit of a wait and see. You know, 25 per cent tariffs on all products entering the United States seems like a big lift for even our fellow Americans,” Sharma says.