By Cheryl Jahn

Trump’s tariffs threat not good for Canada

Nov 26, 2024 | 3:58 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It couldn’t be in plainer language, laid out on social media.

“I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25 per cent tariff on ALL products coming into the United States”. The ultimatum goes on to say the tariff will remain in place until both countries stop drugs, in particular fentanyl, and people from illegally crossing the borders.

“I think if we learned anything from the first Trump presidency, it’s that he’s very unpredictable and we should expect more of that in in the future,” says Dr. Gary Wilson, Political Scientist at UNBC. “Whether it’s sabre rattling or not, I’m not sure. But, you know, he’s been saying these things throughout the campaign and I think he intends to follow through, at least in part with some of these tariffs.”

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Eighty per cent of BC’s softwood lumber is shipped to the United States. There is already a tariff of 17 per cent on softwood. But Kurt Niquidet says American lumber consumers will be hit just as hard.

“With these tariffs push up the costs and the prices in the US. So it hurts the consumer in the US for softwood lumber that’s been impacting the consumers of lumber. The home builders and so forth, and eroding housing affordability. And then in back in Canada, it negatively impacts our production and has impacts on businesses and workers and communities.”

But it is a new global dynamic in terms of international trade and it has been coming for years.

“We can’t afford to lose access to the 99-and-a half per cent of the human race that doesn’t live in Canada, and the four-and-a-half per cent park right below us are the richest four-and- a-half per cent in the world,” says Charles Scott with the School of Business at UNBC. “We have a geography that most countries yearn to have. We’re going to have to figure it out.” The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement came into force on July 1, 2020. What Trump is proposing once he takes office in the new year would run afoul of that trade agreement.

“Trump required really that we kind of renegotiate that agreement when he was entering his first term in office and he would essentially be breaking the terms of the agreement that he wanted,” says Dr. Wilson. “So, yeah, that I mean, we may see pressure to renegotiate that agreement once again.”

But for industry, waiting around to see if the threat is real – or not – Is not an option.