By Cheryl Jahn

Tariffs are coming

Jan 21, 2025 | 3:54 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It was the moment a lot of Canadians were waiting for. The inauguration of President Donald Trump, amid threats of 25 per cent tariffs on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico. It didn’t happen when Trump pushed his deadline to impose tariffs to February 1.

“It is a significant threat,” says Gary Wilson with Political Science at UNBC. “And I don’t want to downplay that. I do know that, you know, he has sort of postponed the tariff drop until February 1. Apparently that’s the new date. But there’s also a report that he’s that his commission through executive order, which is to look into the tariffs, and that’s due in April.”

The reaction to the initial news of tariffs was swift at many levels of government. During the Natural Resources Forum, the Premier’s office noted that B.C. could see a cumulative loss of 69 billion dollars in economic activity between 2025 and 2028.

“As you look at the numbers, you see that 80 per cent of the US households that file an income tax return have done very moderately okay from the economic expansion,” says Charles Scott with UNBC’s School of Business. “Twenty per cent have done fantastically, eighty per cent of the tax filers – which is eighty per cent of the voters – are not enjoying their lot in the economy.”

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, went into effect on July 1 of 2020, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was an agreement Trump signed. And now he wants to revisit it.

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“This is a new administration,” explains Wilson. “This is, as you know, a new Trump with new powers. He’s flagged that before. to revisit. So I’m not surprised, really.”

Scott says it is time to plan for some form of return.

“The only thing he understands, as a transactional person that doesn’t really have a functioning moral compass, is force. And so you’ve got to whack him back on the nose when he hits you on the nose. And frankly, if we’re not prepared to play tough with the Americans, we will be a doormat.”

Wilson agrees but to do it carefully.

“The problem with tariffs is, depending on what tariffs we instituted, that’s going to affect industries differently, depending on the province as well. So we could see one province being hit and another province not being hit. That could create fissures and disagreements and conflict within our federation.”

But both agree, that it’s time Canada looked to trading partners elsewhere, such as Asia, where B.C. has the advantage.