Businesses Brace for Trump's 50% Tariff on Canadian Goods
With a deadline days away, lumber yards, dairy farmers and contractors along the border say uncertainty over the threatened tariff is already raising costs.
A 50% tariff on a wide range of Canadian imports is set to take effect next week, and businesses that rely on materials from Canada say the uncertainty alone is already straining their operations.
President Trump announced last month that he wants the tax applied to goods ranging from clothing to building materials like plywood and cement. The United States and Canada are in active negotiations and hope to reach a deal before the deadline, but businesses are not waiting to feel the effects.
At JP Building Supply in Rensselaer Falls, New York, about 15 miles from the Canadian border, roughly a third of the lumber comes from Canada. Owner James Putman said a 50% tariff would hit his business hard. "That means we have to add on 50% because we've got to, obviously, we got to put it on to the customer, and that's just going to push everything else up," he said.
Across the border in Ottawa, Hank Vedder, a sales manager at a lumber business that ships 60% of its product to the U.S., said the mere threat of tariffs is already changing customer behavior. Buyers are either rushing to order before the deadline or holding off in hopes of relief, he said, creating a domino effect that ripples through the supply chain.
In central New York, dairy farmer A.J. Wormuth, who chairs the Northeast Dairy Producers Association, said existing tariffs on steel and aluminum, combined with the uncertainty over the new levy, have already driven up costs for anyone building or expanding a farm operation.
The new tariffs would cover a broad range of Canadian goods, including chandeliers, ice skates, dairy products and alcohol. Amy Magnus, a Vermont-based customs broker with 40 years of experience, said she has never seen anything like it and is advising clients to bring in affected shipments now if possible.
The tariffs follow a Supreme Court ruling that found Trump lacked authority to impose certain earlier tariffs by executive order, forcing the government to refund about $100 billion. The administration is now pursuing the new tariffs under a different, previously unused legal provision.
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), in accordance with our editorial policy.
