HANNOVER, GERMANY — Dimachem does not have the flashiest of booths at Hannover Messe, the largest industrial technology trade fair in the world. A small, high-top table bearing bottles of household cleaning products has a hard time competing for attention at an event where pop-up versions of AI-powered assembly lines seem to wait around every corner.

Yet Dimachem, an industrial chemicals manufacturer in Windsor, Ont., is not focused on selling an innovative new product to Europe. Instead, it is pitching itself as a manufacturing base for making European products—in Canada—and exporting them to the United States.

“Ideal location: serving Canada, Mexico and the U.S. seamlessly and tariff-free!” reads text that flashes up on a screen Monday morning at the booth that Dimachem set up on the edge of the Team Canada pavilion at the massive advanced-manufacturing show in northern Germany, where about 100 Canadian exhibitors have gathered this week. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney is working to double exports to non-U.S. countries by 2035 and courting foreign investment to help reduce reliance on the U.S., and the European Union—where the manufacturing economy accounted for nearly €5.9 trillion in 2024—is an attractive new vista for Canadian firms. But Canada is not the only one with something to sell. About 4,000 exhibitors from countries around the world  are spread across the sprawling exhibition complex, vying for attention from potential clients and investors in Europe.

Technological wizardry helps, but when up against high-tech innovations from the rest of the world, so does geographic proximity to the U.S. and years of integration into its industrial supply chains. A selling point for many Canadian firms long before President Donald Trump launched his trade war, it remains a way for Canadian firms to keep punching above their weight.

The primary source of business for Dimachem is making industrial cleaners, paint strippers and other chemical products under its own brand, says vice-president Andrew Conway. It has been around since 1972, and counts major manufacturers, including automakers and auto parts companies in North America, among its clients.

It has developed another line of business, however, in contract manufacturing goods for other brands. It got into that stream in a big way during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Dimachem signed a multi-year contract with The Clorox Company, based in Oakland, Calif., to manufacture some 12 million bottles of its Pine-Sol disinfectant per year. The firm funded its business expansion in part through an investment from the Ontario government, and hired more people.

Dimachem’s primary business has been rocked by uncertainty since the U.S. President Donald Trump launched his trade war last year, especially the tariffs on the auto sector. Three of its contract manufacturing clients, however, are based in Europe.

That is where Conway said the company sees an opportunity for growth.

Those clients, which Conway declined to name, came Dimachem’s way before Trump returned to the White House. Tariffs were not really on the radar, but the European firms were looking for a manufacturer on this side of the Atlantic to lower transportation costs, reduce emissions and respond more nimbly to changing conditions in the North American market they sell to.

Now, the U.S. has a 15 per cent baseline tariff on goods from the European Union. Because those clients contract their manufacturing to Dimachem, where the goods are eligible for duty-free treatment through the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), they can avoid paying it.

“That’s an unexpected benefit,” said Conway. It benefits Dimachem, too. The business from one of the European clients is big enough that Dimachem is putting in a new packaging line.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said it is time to put the message that Carney delivered in his speech to the World Economic Forum into action. In January, amid Trump’s tariffs and talk of territorial expansion, Carney urged middle powers to band together, arguing: “When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness.” Joly said there is a part for businesses to play too.

“We now need to operationalize it,” she told The Logic ahead of her trip to Hannover Messe, where she opened the Team Canada pavilion on Monday morning with a speech encouraging the Canadian businesses there to “conquer the world together.” In the interview last week, Joly said: “While we’re working to diversify trade, we need to put businesses together—the Canadian ones with the European ones and those from around the world.”

It is still early, but the numbers suggest something is happening. In February, exports to non-U.S. countries reached a record high of $22.3 billion—a 10.5 per cent increase over the previous month, and Europe is part of that story. Canada exported nearly $43 billion worth of merchandise to countries in the EU last year—a 23 per cent increase over the total for 2024.

A wander through the labyrinth of exhibition halls at Hannover Messe gives a sense of how competitive things can get, with so many companies claiming they have the solution to boosting productivity. Robert Hardt, a former CEO at Siemens Canada who now advises businesses interested in entering new markets, has seen the enthusiasm of Canadian companies wane when that level of competition keeps them from succeeding quickly. Hardt said many make the mistake of taking a “transactional” approach to growing their business overseas: “I have a product. Now I will try to find customers to buy this product.” 

Instead, Hardt advises studying the market for a couple of years, including its customers, value chains, manufacturing processes and regulations, which vary from sector to sector. He said it is then a good idea to base a team in Europe to build longer-term relationships.

Jayson Myers, CEO of Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led non-profit that organized the Canadian mission to Hannover Messe, encourages Canadian firms to think about fitting into an existing supply chain of another company instead of going it alone. “You don’t necessarily need to be in Europe to sell to Europe,” Myers said. 

Maya HTT, a Montreal-based software developer, has been working with German multinational Siemens for roughly 40 years, providing engineering services and developing software products for use in its industrial processes, including digital twin and simulation technologies. Remi Duquette, Maya HTT’s vice-president industrial AI, said that partnership has helped fuel the firm’s own expansion into Europe. “It’s easier for us to land there with that kind of a partner, making us look more legitimate,” Duquette said.

Yvonne Denz, president and CEO of the Toronto-based Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, said German businesses are showing more interest in Canada too. “A lot of German companies are rethinking their strategies for Canada,” Denz said. “More and more they see Canada as an independent market and not so much as part of USMCA.”

That makes Hannover Messe an opportunity for Canada’s advanced manufacturing companies to showcase what they are doing at home. On Monday morning, Joly announced 14 projects will receive nearly $25 million in new federal funding through NGen’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology Program, which reimburses firms 40 per cent of their total eligible project costs. The funding from the cluster is on top of $38 million in direct investment from the private sector.

Joly, who is set to deliver a speech Tuesday at Hannover Messe on Canada’s defence industrial strategy, suggested diversifying trade and promoting Canadian innovations in manufacturing all serve the same goal. “There’s a global competition for manufacturing jobs,” she said in the interview. “We need to be at the forefront of this competition, and we need to be able to win it.”