Close up of the “Shop Canadian” poster in a local shop in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on April 4, 2025.
Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty pictures
Some small companies personally take tariffs across the border between the USA and Canada.
President Donald Trump said that his extensive tariffs, even in some of the country's closest trading partners, will launch international trade and bring back production. But for the northern neighbors of the United States, tariffs can mean a confidence erosion.
The country's trade relationship with Canada was historically an essential part of the economies. In 2024, trading between the two nations was 762.1 billion dollars. According to the association of the United States' office, Canada exported over three quarters of its goods to the United States last year, and US imports almost made up Half of all goods that brought it.
From March, however, the Trump administration implemented a 10% tariff on Canadian energy and 25% tariffs for other imports from Canada and Mexico, a tax that it promised on the day of inauguration. However, he frees many imports covered as part of the agreement on the United States-Mexico Canada.
Trump also relyed a 25% tariff on vehicles that is not gathered in the USA and which took effect at the beginning of this month, a step that affects both Mexico and Canada, two important hubs for car production. In addition, a tariff of 25% will come into force on auto parts next month.
Canada has reacted with her own retaliatory tariffs, but National Pride has triggered further resistance.
Balzac's coffee -Roasters highlights Canadian patriotism on its cafe menu.
Matthew Mikrut | CNBC
Balzacs Coffee Roasters, a chain of cafés in Ontario and Toronto, has reacted to trading voltages with a renamed menu item: The Americano-a everyday espresso drink is now a “Canadian” marked with a Maple leaf.
Your independent food dealers, a chain of independent supermarkets under the Canadian Loblaw Companies, use their own Maple Leaf badge to display “products created in Canada”. The food dealer also shows tsarif -related objects with a “t” logo in shops and online.
Charts in your independent food dealer in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada.
Cameron Costa | CNBC
Corinne Pohlmann is Executive Vice President for Advocacy at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in CFIB, which represents over 100,000 small companies in 12 of Canadian territories and provinces in Canada.
According to the organization of 2024, about half of the CFIB members are involved in import or export from the USA. This metric includes the dependence on suppliers and customers who also act with the USA
More than a quarter of the CFIB members surveyed at the end of March stated that they see a stronger demand for Canadian products. More than half of the companies surveyed agreed that the United States is not a reliable trading partner.
The trade voltages have expanded to a few long -term relationships between us and Canadian small companies, she said, as an entrepreneur, decided which side of the border will absorb the costs of new tariffs. Pohlmann remembered some CFIB members in which he was asked for instructions on how to negotiate contracts with partners in the south.
Pohlmann said the tariffs caused emotional stress in addition to the cost increases.
“For many Canadians it felt like a betrayal,” Pohlmann said.
The Liquor Control Board from Ontario has stopped its purchases from US products from March 4. The LCBO individual trade in Niagara-on-the-Lake shows a signage with the inscription “For the well-being of Ontario, the good Canada”, explains the disappearance of products made in the USA such as California and Tito's Vodka.
A worker removed bottles with American wine on Tuesday, March 4, 2025 from a shelf on the Queen's Queen's quay store in Toronto, Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
Christopher Katsarov Luna | Bloomberg | Getty pictures
However, it is not always clear.
A representative of LCBO Press has been clarified by e -mail to CNBC that every product manufactured in Canada, such as the locally produced Coors Light Beer, is okay to adorn shelves, regardless of the company's ownership.
Molson Coors has production facilities in Canada and the USA
“While we are a global business, our beers and drinks are generally manufactured in the markets in which they are sold,” said Molson Coors Senior Director of Communications Rachel Gellman Johnson.
Customs are usually an instrument of “hard power”, which leads to geopolitical change through compulsion. The long -term relationships of the United States to trading partners such as Canada, Mexico and Japan have strengthened the country's influence on the global stage.
In addition to the numbers, we are influence or so -called “soft power”, which can suffer a hit.
Former Foreign Minister Antony Blinking said this month, Andrew Ross Sorkin from CNBC that a hit by the state's soft power was his greatest fear in the current environment.
“The idea that we would not only see that China tries to develop more soft power, but that we would give up our own … not good for the country, not good for our interests,” said blinking.
Even if President Trump reduces tariffs, Canadian companies can hesitate to rebuild trade relationships with us partners. Pohlmann from CFIB pointed out lost contracts and eroded trust.
“While we would welcome a permanent creation of tariffs, the trade relationship between Canada and the United States was broken and may never be the same again.” Said Pohlmann.
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