Along Northern Border, 'Rhetoric That Has Inspired a Boycott'

A trade war between the US 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 US goods last week after President Trump placed import taxes on Canadian goods worth the same amount, per the AP. In response, Trump said the US also would ban imports of wine, whisky, some motorcycles, and whey from Canada.

The tariffs so far involve about 5.5% of the 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 from the conflict have an outsize effect on them, especially when higher energy costs stemming from the Iran war are eroding their balance sheets.

Two short takes from owners of small businesses, one in the US and one in Canada:

• A new tariff on Canadian honey that the US started charging in August came as a blow to beekeepers like Peter Awram, CEO of the family-owned Worker Bee Honey Co. in Rosedale, British Columbia. The US was the market for about 60% of Canadian honey export volume, he says. The reciprocal 50% tariff that Prime Minister Mark Carney's government slapped on American-made honey does nothing to help, because an influx from India and China of fake honey diluted with rice syrup has created pricing pressure on both sides of the border, says Awram. Most Canadian beekeepers will likely try to increase their domestic sales, which could flood the market with honey and further depress prices, he notes. "The industry was in a precarious state before the tariff," Awram says. "If this tariff stays in place for long, it will put a large number of commercial beekeepers out of business."
• 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 US tariffs last month. Kehler suspects his hopes for expanding business in Canada are stalling because residents there resent the way the US president and members of his Cabinet treat their country, a longtime ally. "The backlash on the market side is actually what's affecting us the most," Kehler says. "It's the rhetoric that has inspired a boycott."

More small-business stories out of the two countries here.