Last Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump implemented a 25% tariff on most Canadian-made goods; energy and energy resources are subject to a 10 percent tariff. In response, Canada put a tariff on $30 billion in goods imported from the United States and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised another $125 billion of levies in three weeks.
Many in the Chilkat Valley said they anticipate negative impacts on relationships they have with neighboring communities, tourism, and the price of commodities. Here’s more on what some residents and business owners had to say in reaction to the tariff announcements.
Erik Lembke
“I’m a fisherman, so retaliatory tariffs would have a big effect on my business. Some portion of our fish goes to Canada, and I know Haines Packing sells in Canada. China also has put a ten percent tariff on our fish so I’m guessing that will affect our chum price.”
Burl Sheldon
“I want to see our local business people be successful. The people from Whitehorse and Haines Junction are an important part of that, and it’s reciprocal. The bigger issue is there’s no reason to do this. There’s no reason the United States and Canada shouldn’t have fantastic relationships. So it’s shocking.
Rhonda Hinson, Alaska Rods
“I’m sure everything will work out in the end; it’ll be inconvenient for a while, but this is how you make things even up. We knew they had a tariff on cheese because we get lots of Canadian regulars come down to get cheese. For years they’ve made it so if you’re in the store there what’s available is what’s produced in Canada first. That’s looking out for their country. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to negotiate on tariffs to get a better balance. Hopefully our Canadian neighbors will still come down regularly because we’re like one big community.”
Roger and Kisa Bergstrand, MooseHorn Antiques & Gifts
R: We’re very sorry to miss our Canadian customers. They’re already boycotting us all over Canada. That’s going to hurt us real bad.
K: Our tire traffic – all of our visitors from the road – that’s one of our biggest sales, more so than cruise ships. Honestly I’d rather they take some cruise ships away than have this happen. A lot of our products are from all around the world. We also carry snacks from all around the world that we aren’t going to be able to afford much longer. We have wholesalers we buy from, world food distributors, and it’s already a lot for the shipping to get this kind of stuff here. It’s going to be a lot tougher season if Canadians don’t come here. I’ve been here for 45 years and Canadians have always spent a lot of time and money here and that ain’t going to happen anymore. That’s already curtailed.
We’ve bought all new flags here recently, the Canadian, Alaskan, and American are all going up.
Amber Oman
I actually haven’t heard about them. I’m sure it will affect us but we live in Haines; we’re used to paying high prices for stuff anyway.
Fred Einspruch
There’s no doubt it’s going to affect everyone. The tariffs on Mexico, a lot of our produce comes from Mexico so that will raise prices. I think there’s a big movement in Canada anti-tourism, so we might suffer from those political repercussions.
Paul Wheeler, Haines Brewing Company
Sixty percent of our grain comes from Canada. We made an emergency order last month because of these tariffs. A 25 percent tariff is a couple thousand dollars worth of grain for us. In here, prices aren’t going up because we have a good summer supply, about a seven-month buffer. So we’ll see what happens after that.
Jim Lampkins, manager Lutak Lumber
Price changes haven’t happened yet. Just the normal minor fluctuations. But our pine, cedar, most of it is logged in Canada. And me having to answer that question to everyone who walks in the door. There’s stress about it like from the customers, “Oh, do I need to buy this now?” Everybody is like, what’s happening with pricing? It is what it is. It’s frustrating. The pricing is one thing, it’s the not knowing. And I’ve come to the conclusion, I refuse to speculate. I’m not going to stock up on cedar this week cause I think it’s going to go up next week.
I think Skagway is going to see this in a huge way because they buy most of their stuff out of Canada. Like, I’m selling more building materials to Skagway now because they generally go up to Whitehorse to get them because it’s right there. Like, I just sold a whole septic system over there for some big building. It’s going to be a big impact on them. I don’t know if it’s going to be worth it to come over here. But if they’re going to build a house, most of their stuff is coming from Whitehorse.
Doug Olerud, Alaska Sport Shop
At the end of the day, this took me many decades to figure out and it caused me a lot of stress, I can control what I can control. I can’t control tariffs, I can’t control who comes to Haines, I can’t control the fish runs. I’m going to put the best assortment that I can in the store. Some years, I’m going to sell most of it and have a really good year. Other years I’m going ‘Uh, I hope we sell that next year because it kind of sucks right now.” But I stress about the things I can control. You know I try and hire really good staff, and have the store clean and neat and with good products in it and from there on I don’t really have control over anything else. I can’t control the economy. I can’t control if we have a pandemic. I can’t control if we have international tariffs. I can’t control any of that. And so it’s like, let’s put our best foot forward and be welcoming to anybody that comes in and more often than not that’s worked.