Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
The White House announced 50% tariffs on a slew of Canadian products Monday evening. The new fees will apply to a range of goods, from motor vehicles to dairy products and alcohol, and will take effect Aug. 19.
The tariffs are the latest twist in more than a year of concern for Vermont businesses and lawmakers over President Donald Trump’s trade strategy.
Canada is by far Vermont’s largest international trade partner, accounting for over $600 million in exports from the state and more than $2 billion in imports in 2024, according to an Eastern Border Transportation Coalition report. In 2025, Vermont’s largest imports from Canada included $600 million in chocolate and cocoa products, which do not appear to be affected by the new fees, and over $230 million in jewelry and precious metals, some of which are.
Vermont’s tourism industry has already suffered acutely as Canadian travel across the border has plummeted amid harsh rhetoric and aggressive trade actions from the Trump administration. Vermont economists have reported decreasing tax revenues in business sectors driven by visitors. Several new waves of tariffs — and subsequent legal challenges — have meant confusion and heavy costs for businesses across the state. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down one set of fees, many Vermont importers set about requesting thousands of dollars in federal refunds.
The tariffs announced Monday are a response to “Canada’s discriminatory treatment of American products” through uneven trade policies, according to a White House statement. Many Canadian provinces, for example, have halted the sales of U.S.-made alcoholic beverages without levying similar restrictions on products from other countries, the statement said.
The new fees will apply to roughly $20 billion worth of U.S. imports from its neighbor to the north, according to the U.S. Trade Representative — a relatively small fraction of American purchases from Canada each year. Unlike several previous Trump administration tariffs on Canada, these fees will apply to goods otherwise included in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade deal struck by the three countries in 2019.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday that he and Trump have agreed to accelerate trade talks in an effort to avert the tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Tom Kavet, an economist for the Vermont Legislature, said late last year that federal policy and rhetoric in relation to trade with Canada already constituted a “costly unforced error.” On Tuesday, he called the new set of tariffs “pure stupidity.”
Particularly in combination with existing Trump-era tariffs, these high new fees would raise prices for American consumers, make production of some goods less efficient and cost jobs, Kavet said. In Vermont, where some goods move back and forth frequently during manufacturing, the policy could be especially disruptive, he said.
And while negotiations or legal challenges could eventually reverse the policy, that could take years, Kavet added. “I don’t think you can treat it as an idle threat,” he said.
State Treasurer Mike Pieciak expressed similar concerns in an interview Tuesday, saying the new fees would be “essentially a tax,” paid disproportionately by border communities like those in Vermont. State officials have limited ability to counter the potential tariffs’ impacts, he said.
For Amy Magnus, director of customs affairs and compliance at St. Albans-based customs broker A.N. Deringer, Monday’s announcement was bad news. Magnus’ company acts as an intermediary between businesses that import or export goods and government customs agencies. A sudden 50% fee of this kind, she said, is “downright shocking.”
Magnus and Pieciak agreed that a number of affected goods are potentially crucial for Vermonters. Outdoor apparel, dairy products and building materials for housing could all get more difficult or expensive to obtain.
“Either the price of these types of goods is going to skyrocket, or we won’t be seeing any of them coming from Canada,” Magnus said. “I see it harming both sides.”
Although she said Canadian trade policy has likely been discriminatory toward U.S. goods in certain narrow sectors, Magnus feels that Monday’s move is far too sweeping to be a sensible response. The speed and scale of the fee changes — and those that Trump has announced over the last year — may create profound issues for businesses and economies across the globe.
“The instability that this causes in a trading system is very long term,” she said, “and will not right itself, if ever, for many years.”
A number of regional and federal leaders in Canada have already decried the move, calling it unjustified. Ontario Premier Doug Ford called for retaliatory tariffs if the White House follows through on its new fees.
For Pieciak, that’s a real worry.
“Every time we put fuel on that fire, it’s incentivizing (Canada) even more to find other more reasonable and more consistent trading partners,” he said.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who has been a vocal opponent of Trump’s tariff policy, weighed in Monday.
“These new tariff threats against Canada are an extreme escalation of President Trump’s reckless and irresponsible trade war,” he said in a statement. “The White House’s endless attacks on our Canadian neighbors — Vermont’s closest partner in trade — have caused undeniable harm to our state’s economy, and the aftershocks of today’s announcement will do lasting damage.”
In Monday’s proclamation, Trump derived authority from a provision in the Tariff Act of 1930, which, according to Magnus and national reporting, has never previously been exercised in this manner. The move may face legal challenges.
“This is yet another reason why Congress needs to take back its constitutional power over trade policy,” Welch’s statement continued. “This administration needs to answer for the economic chaos it’s creating.”
