As previous tariffs were set to expire, the Trump Administration on Friday extended tariffs on about 99 percent of imports. Along New York’s northern border, economists and business development officials are disappointed, but not surprised, by the move.
The extended import taxes place a 10 to 12.5% charge on goods coming into the U.S.
North Country Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Garry Douglas was at the Farnborough Airshow in Britain where worldwide business interests had gathered when the new tariffs were announced.
“To some degree there’s almost kind of a numbness to these periodic announcements of American tariffs and their threats of tariff actions because they’ve been such a constant kind of cycle for the last year-and-a-half now that they’re no longer stunning or shocking or surprising,” Douglas said.
SUNY Plattsburgh economics professor Colin Read is a former mayor of Plattsburgh. He doesn’t think the new taxes will create greater damage than what has already been imposed.
“Our region is very dependent on our relationship with Canada in particular," Read said. "Canada at this point, I think has just pretty much just given up on having rational trade policy. They realize they can take the US to court on this one, well, the president’s going to find some loophole to apply some other premise. So, I don’t think that any more damage can really be done at this point because things are about as bad as they can really get at this point in Canada-U.S. relations.”
SUNY Plattsburgh Center for the Study of Canada Director Christopher Kirkey does not expect an immediate effect on regional cross-border trade either.
“The biggest impact for us in the North Country is not a precipitous realignment or a drop in trade volumes, but rather that the so-called special relationship as it’s been dubbed between Canada and the United States – does it really even exist anymore?" Kirkey said. "These continuing tariffs and actions and statements by the President against Canada continue to reinforce in the minds of average Canadians that this relationship is really completely gone down the drain at this point."
The Trump Administration’s rationale for imposing this round of tariffs is that the importing countries have inadequately enforced bans on products made by forced labor. Read says that trade provision is a century old and not applicable under current international trade.
“That goes back to an era where forced labor around the world might have been a more prevalent problem. But it was also in the height of the beginning of the Great Depression, part of the Smoot-Hawley tariff regimes," Read said. "So the times were very, very different then. It isn’t a provision that really is applicable now in almost any circumstance, certainly not applying to 60 of our largest trading partners around the world.”
Douglas says the forced labor reason will be legally challenged and he believes the tariffs are more of a negotiating tactic as the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement begins renegotiations.
“No one is panicking yet about the specifics of this particular announcement," Douglas said. "I think we’ve gotten kind of used to it in a tactical sort of way. The important thing which we’re hearing more resolve out of Canada is: get the heck to the table and seriously negotiate the extension of the USMCA while addressing any other particular issues, side issues, get them addressed by year’s end and let’s get this done.”
Read notes that the new tariffs came days after the U.S. imposed “a more symbolic 50% tariff on about $20 billion in goods from Canada.”
Those tariffs violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, he says, and Canada is “up-in-arms about both affronts” and the latest US action will further turn the country to new trading partners.
