• 4.3.25
• General

CHAMBER REACTS TO CONTINUED U.S. TARIFFS ON CANADA

"97% of area businesses expressed opposition to U.S. tariffs on Canada in our 2025 Issue Survey and with good reason," says Garry Douglas, President of the North Country Chamber of Commerce. "It's because no other area in the country is more economically and socially connected with Canada or serves as a better microcosm of why a trade war with our northern friends is just a bad thing bi-nationally."
 

The new announced imposition of reciprocal tariffs on a country-by-country basis does not apply the new 10% baseline tariff on all imports from Canada, but leaves in place the tariffs begun in early March. These consist of a broad 25% tariff on all Canadian goods except for those certified as USMCA compliant and 10% on energy and potash, as well as a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum. 
 

"Today's continuation of tariffs on Canada begun in March is holding us in a trade war that we need to move toward a conclusion," says Douglas. "We call for the U.S. to step back and hit pause in the case of Canada,  await the Canadian election in a few weeks, and then engage in a bi-lateral dialogue. Without this, we face growing disruptions in manufacturing supply chains, spring and summer construction, energy costs, and tourism. But even more vitally than all of the economic concerns for a region on the front line, we must place value on the historic and special people-to-people relationship between Americans and Canadians that has been done real injury. The people we have built shared prosperity with. Who have died with us on D-Day and in Afghanistan. Who took our people in on 9/11 and saved our diplomats in Iran in 1980. We need to reflect and define a bi-national way forward."
 

The Chamber indicates its own strategy will continue to be messaging facts and spotlighting the Plattsburgh area as a particularly good example of U.S.-Canada economic partnership, actively interacting with media outlets in both countries. The Chamber has pointed to direct impacts in the North Country on many sectors of the regional economy including manufacturing, warehousing, energy, construction, agriculture and cross-border tourism and shopping.