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A trade war between the U.S. and Canada is making it more difficult and expensive for small businesses in the economically entwined countries to operate, according to business owners caught in the crossfire.
Canada imposed reciprocal tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods last week after President Donald Trump placed import taxes on Canadian goods worth the same amount. In response to Canada’s action, Trump said the U.S. also would ban imports of wine, whiskey, selected motorcycles and the dairy ingredient whey from Canada.
The tariffs so far involve about 5.5% of the neighboring nations’ bilateral trade in goods. Analysts say the overall economic impact therefore will be muted. But small business owners who depend on cross-border sales say a tax of up to 50% on their products and ill will created by the conflict have an outsize effect on them, especially when higher energy costs stemming from the Iran war are eroding their balance sheets.
The owners of four small businesses, two in the U.S. and two in Canada, spoke with The Associated Press about the ways the trade war is affecting their companies.
At Jasper Hill Farm, an artisan cheesemaker in Greensboro, Vermont, co-founder Mateo Kehler said Trump’s opening salvo produced an immediate effect: canceled holiday orders from wholesale customers in Canada, whose border is only about 40 miles away.
Cheese wasn’t among the products made subject to new U.S. tariffs last month. Kehler suspects his hopes for expanding business in Canada are stalling because residents there resent the way the president and members of his Cabinet treat their country, a longtime ally.
