Bruce Bascom’s maple syrup company does about $500,000 (U.S.) in annual sales to customers in Western Canada.
As of Sunday, those sales will get harder.
In response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is imposing tariffs on 235 U.S. products. One of the products is maple syrup.
Suddenly, Bascom Family Farms syrup will become 10 per cent more expensive for Canadians to import. Which means its Canadian customers may decide to look elsewhere, Bascom said, unless he takes a hit to keep them happy.
“They can buy Canadian and save the 10 per cent tariff, or they can buy American, which is what they have been doing, and pay more. So I suspect we’re going to have to compromise and lower our prices,” said Bascom, 68, a fifth-generation maple syrup producer. “It’s going to cost us quite a bit of money.”
Trudeau is intending to create such pain.
Bascom’s 75-employee company is located in New Hampshire, a swing state in presidential elections. Canada’s list of tariffs has been designed to damage American businesses in politically important and Republican-leaning parts of the country, theoretically creating pressure on Trump to drop his own tariffs.
“The only way to get the Trump administration to yield is to make it painful enough for middle-class Americans, and thus the politicians that represent middle-class Americans, to force them to do something,” said Eric Miller, president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, a U.S.-Canada consultancy.
see, what worries me about this plan is that it hinges on Trump understanding concequesces and reacting logically to them.
just saying
Trudeau’s retaliatory tariffs aim to hit Republicans where it hurts
Cheloneuniverse 