The Trade War Has People On Both Sides of The Border Concerned

(KVRR) — The U.S. and Canada have had a friendly trading relationship for decades. Canada has been the largest export market for 36 states, including North Dakota.

But now that tariffs are kicking in, The North Dakota Corn Utilization Council says corn farmers are becoming concerned over the rising costs and they hope for negotiations to be continued.

“We’re getting pinched in our industry no different than I guess anybody, any citizen. It’s going to cost us more to grow than what we’re going to get from it. So I mean we need the prices to be higher for our costs of doing business or break-even to align,” said Carson Klosterman, Chairman of North Dakota Corn Utilization Council.

Canada plans to respond to the tariffs with their own retaliatory measures. Canada’s consul general says if the United States doesn’t remove the tariffs in three weeks there will be an additional $86 billion tariff on U.S. products.

“So, about eighty percent of all North Dakota’s exports to the world go to Canada. So that means the twenty five percent tariffs on Canada are immediately going to add quite a substantial markup to everything that North Dakota buys from Canada,” said Beth Richardson, Consul General of Canada in Minneapolis.

President Trump is placing a 25% tariff on products from Canada, Mexico and China…and said the tariffs will remain in place until Canada does more to secure its border with the U.S.

“We’ve had a great free trade partnership for thirty-five years that is balanced and fair. And we want to find a way to get back to that as soon as possible. The U.S. government has said they think we’re doing a lot of good things. They have not yet identified anything else they’d like to see,” said Richardson.