With the recent news from the United States and Donald Trump regarding tariff threats, local companies are doing their best to prepare and devise various contingency plans in case these tariffs come into effect.
Walinga Inc. is a Carman-based transportation and conveying systems manufacturer focused on feed delivery systems. The company also has a facility in Fergus, Ontario, that fabricates its pneumatic conveying systems and cuts all steel parts for both it and the Guelph, Ontario location; a machined parts manufacturing facility in Carman; an assembly plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan; a service shop in Sioux Center, Iowa; and an assembly plant in Australia.
The machining division in Carman produces all the machined parts required for the company’s trailers and blower machines. Most of its production is in the manufacture of precision blowers and airlocks. Still, it also produces auger shafts and rotation plates for feeders and drive shafts for the pneumatic conveying systems produced at the company’s Fergus facility. Carman also has a hard coating line, trailer and rebuilding services, and a sales team.
What makes Walinga interesting is that it has plants and offices on both sides of the border.
“We have a manufacturing plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we’ve just expanded that plant by 36,000 feet to put a new trailer line in there,” said Cor Lodder, Director and Operations Manager at Walinga. “We were planning to do an expansion there when Trump was first elected a few years back and did a ‘Trump Pause’ as we were unsure of all the changes and what was going to happen. We found it financially responsible to hold back for a bit.”
Potential tariffs would really hit Walinga’s raw materials, which they source from the United States or China.
“Some of our specialized larger aluminum excursions are only made from one mill in the United States, China and one in Greece,” said Lodder. “The Greece mill shut us down a while back because they were having trouble fulfilling their European orders, let alone North American, so we were no longer able to source from them from there.”
Regarding the news of potential tariffs to come, Lodder and his staff at Walinga have been having many meetings at different levels, from supply chain purchasing people to various levels of management. They had a meeting one-morning last week to plan their tariff response, and they have another meeting this week to follow up on their response.
Walinga also gathered its 70 employees in Carman last Friday to explain the tariffs, their effect on the company, and its plan for the future.
“From a sales perspective, it’s very important that we keep our customers in mind. We can’t just arbitrarily throw a price increase at them because we got hit by a tariff. In some cases, they ordered from us two years ago. So when the trailers are ordered that far in advance, we have signed contracts with a notation/understanding in there that the price is firmed up later on with the customer so that they don’t get blindsided.”
At Walinga, the margins are very slim, so when you are hit with surcharges, exchange rates, and tariffs, you can quickly find yourself in a loss situation on a particular unit.
However, despite any potential tariffs on the horizon, Lodder has made it clear that he has his employee’s backs and that they’ll be able to get through it relatively unscathed.
“We let our staff know that we don’t expect any layoffs and will focus entirely on safeguarding jobs in long-term stability,” said Lodder. “The future is bright at Walinga.”
